the Ettrick Shepherd presided gleefully.
They are still held, or were held very lately, but there will never come
again such another Shepherd, or such contests with the Flying Tailor of
Ettrick.

Apart from the tragedy of Clara, doubtless the better parts of "St.
Ronan's Well" are the Scotch characters. Even our generation remembers
many a Meg Dods, and he who writes has vividly in his recollection just
such tartness, such goodness of heart, such ungoverned eloquence and
vigour of rebuke as made Meg famous, successful on the stage, and
welcome to her countrymen. These people, Mrs. Blower and Meg, are
Shakspearean, they live with Dame Quickly and Shallow, in the hearts of
Scots, but to the English general they are possibly caviare. In the
gallant and irascible MacTurk we have the waning Highlander: he
resembles the Captain of Knockdunder in "The Heart of Mid Lothian," or
an exaggerated and ill-educated Hector of "The Antiquary." Concerning
the women of the tale, it may be said that Lady Binks has great
qualities, and appears to have been drawn "with an eye on the object,"
as Wordsworth says, and from the life. Lady Penelope seems more
exaggerated now than she probably did at the time, for the fashion of
affectation changes. The Winterblossoms and Quacklebens are accurate
enough in themselves, but are seen through a Blackwoodian atmosphere, as
it were, through a mist of the temporary and boisterous Scotch humour of
the day. The author occasionally stoops to a pun, and, like that which
Hood made in the hearing of Thackeray, the pun is not good. Indeed the
novel, in its view of the decay of the Border, the ruined Laird, the
frivolous foolish society of the Well, taking the place of sturdy
William of Deloraine, and farmers like Scott's grandfather, makes a
picture of decadence as melancholy as "Redgauntlet." "Not here, O
Apollo, are haunts meet for thee!" Strangely enough, among the features
of the time, Scott mentions reckless borrowings, "accommodation," "Banks
of Air." His own business was based on a "Bank of Air," "wind-capital,"
as Cadell, Constable's partner, calls it, and the bubble was just about
to burst, though Scott had no apprehension of financial ruin. A horrid
power is visible in Scott's second picture of _la mauvaise pauvre_, the
hag who despises and curses the givers of "handfuls of coals and of
rice;" his first he drew in the witches of "The Bride of Lammermoor." He
has himself indicated his desire to press