ess of these recent novels, seen on every table, the
subject of every conversation, had, with those who did not doubt their
parentage, far more than counterweighed his declination, dubious after
all, in the poetical balance; while the mystery that hung over them
quickened the curiosity of the hesitating and conjecturing many--and
the name on which ever and anon some new circumstance accumulated
stronger suspicion, loomed larger through the {p.028} haze in which
he had thought fit to envelop it. Moreover, this was a period of high
national pride and excitement.

"O who that shared them ever shall forget
The emotions of the spirit-rousing time,
When breathless in the mart the couriers met,
Early and late, at evening and at prime;
When the loud cannon and the merry chime
Hail'd news on news, as field on field was won,
When Hope, long doubtful, soared at length sublime,
And our glad eyes, awake as day begun,
Watch'd Joy's broad banner rise, to meet the rising sun?

"O these were hours, when thrilling joy repaid
A long, long course of darkness, doubts, and fears!
The heart-sick faintness of the hope delayed,
The waste, the woe, the bloodshed, and the tears
That tracked with terror twenty rolling years--
All was forgot in that blithe jubilee.
Her downcast eye even pale Affliction rears,
To sigh a thankful prayer amid the glee
That hailed the Despot's fall, and peace and liberty!"[11]

[Footnote 11: _Lord of the Isles_, Canto vi.]

At such a time, Prince and people were well prepared to hail him who,
more perhaps than any other master of the pen, had contributed to
sustain the spirit of England throughout the struggle, which was as
yet supposed to have been terminated on the field of Toulouse. "Thank
Heaven you are coming at last!" Joanna Baillie had written a month or
two before. "Make up your mind to be stared at only a little less than
the Czar of Muscovy, or old Bluecher."

And now took place James Ballantyne's "mighty consummation of the
meeting of the two bards." Scott's own account of it, in a letter to
Mr. Moore, must have been seen by most of my readers; yet I think it
ought also to find a place here. He says:--

"It was in the spring of 1815, that, chancing to be in London, I had
the advantage of a personal introduction {p.029} to Lord Byron.
Report had prepared me to meet a man of peculiar habits and a quick
temper, and I had