More important to him than any literary friendship was his partnership with James Ballantyne, the printer, whom he had known from his youth. This in the end proved unfortunate, and nearly ruined him; for Ballantyne, though an accomplished man and a fine printer, as well as enterprising and sensible, was not a safe business man, being over-sanguine. For a time, however, this partnership, which was kept secret, was an advantage to both parties, although Scott embarked in the enterprise his whole available capital, about L5000. In connection with the publishing business, soon added to the printing, with James Ballantyne's brother John as figure-head of the concern,—a talented but dissipated and reckless "good fellow," with no more head for business than either James Ballantyne or Scott,—the association bound Scott hand and foot for twenty years, and prompted him to adventurous undertakings. But it must be said that the Ballantynes always deferred to him, having for him a sentiment little short of veneration. One of the first results of this partnership was an eighteen-volume edition of Dryden's poems, with a Life, which must have been to Scott little more than drudgery. He was well paid for his work, although it added but little to his fame, except for intelligent literary industry.

Before the Dryden, however, in the same year, 1808, appeared the poem of "Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field," which was received by the public with great avidity, and unbounded delight. Jeffrey wrote a chilling review, for which Scott with difficulty forgave him, since with all his humility and amiability he could not bear unfriendly or severe criticism.

In a letter to Joanna Baillie, Scott makes some very sensible remarks as to the incapability of such a man as Jeffrey appreciating a work of the imagination, distinguished as he was:—

"I really have often told him that I think he wants the taste for poetry which is essentially necessary to enjoy, and of course to criticize with justice. He is learned with the most learned in its canons and laws, skilled in its modulations, and an excellent judge of the justice of the sentiments which it conveys; but he wants that enthusiastic feeling which, like sunshine upon a landscape, lights up every beauty, and palliates if it cannot hide every defect. To offer a poem of imagination to a man whose whole life and study have been to acquire a stoical indifference towards enthusiasm of every kind, would be the last, as it would surely be the silliest, action of my life."

As stated above, it was about this time that Scott broke off his connection with the Edinburgh Review. Perhaps that was what Jeffrey wished, since the Review became thenceforth more intensely partisan, and Scott's Toryism was not what was wanted.

It is fair to add that in 1810 Jeffrey sent Scott advance proofs of his critique on "The Lady of the Lake," with a frank and friendly letter in which he says:—

"I am now sensible that there were needless asperities in my review of 'Marmion,' and from the hurry in which I have been forced to write, I dare say there may be some here also.... I am sincerely proud both of your genius and of your glory, and I value your friendship more highly than most either of my literary or political opinions."

Southey, Ellis, and Wordsworth, Erskine, Heber, and other friends wrote congratulatory letters about "Marmion," with slight allusions to minor blemishes. Lockhart thought that it was on the whole the greatest of Scott's poems, in strength and boldness. Most critics regarded the long introduction to each canto as a defect, since it broke the continuity of the narrative; but it may at least be said that these preludes give an interesting insight into the author's moods and views. The opinions of literary men of course differ as to the relative excellence of the different poems. "Marmion" certainly had great merit, and added to the fame of the author. There is here more variety of metre than in his other poems, and also some passages of such beauty as to make the poem immortal,—like the death of Marmion, and those familiar lines in reference to Clara's constancy:—

"O woman! in our hours of ease, Uncertain, coy, and hard to please, And variable as the shade By the light, quivering aspen made,— When pain and anguish wring the brow, A ministering angel thou."

The sale of "Marmion" ultimately reached fifty thousand copies in Great Britain. The poem was originally published in a luxurious quarto at thirty-one and a-half shillings. Besides one thousand guineas in advance, half the profits went to Scott, and must have reached several thousand pounds,—a great sale, when we remember that it was confined to libraries and people of wealth. In America, the poem was sold for two or three shillings,—less than one-tenth of what it cost the English reader. A successful poem or novel in England is more remunerative to the author, from the high price at which it is published, than in the United States, where prices are lower and royalties rarely exceed ten per cent. It must be borne in mind, however, that in England editions are ordinarily very small, sometimes consisting of not more than two hundred and fifty copies. The first edition of "Marmion" was only of two thousand copies. The largest edition published was in 1811, of five thousand copies octavo; but even this did not circulate largely among the people. The popularity of Scott in England was confined chiefly to the upper classes, at least until the copyright of his books had expired. The booksellers were not slow in availing themselves of Scott's popularity. They employed him to edit an edition of Swift for L1500, and tried to induce him to edit a general edition of English poets. That scheme was abandoned in consequence of a disagreement between Scott and Murray, the London publisher, as to the selection of poets.

I think the quarrels of authors eighty or one hundred years ago with their publishers were more frequent than they are in these times. We read of a long alienation between Scott and Constable, the publisher, who enjoyed a sort of monopoly of the poet's contributions to literature. Constable soon after found a great rival in Murray, who was at this time an obscure London bookseller in Fleet Street. Both these great publishers were remarkable for sagacity, and were bold in their ventures. The foundation of Constable's wealth was laid when he was publishing the Edinburgh Review. In 1809, Murray started the Quarterly Review, its great political rival, with the aid of Scott, who wrote many of its most valuable articles; and William Gilford, satirist and critic, became its first editor. Growing out of the quarrel between Scott and Constable was the establishment of John Ballantyne & Co. as publishers and booksellers in Edinburgh.

Shortly after the establishment of the Quarterly Review as a Tory journal, Scott began his third great poem, "The Lady of the Lake," which was published in 1810, in all the majesty of a quarto, at the price of two guineas a copy. He received for it two thousand guineas. The first edition of two thousand copies disappeared at once, and was followed the same year by four octavo editions. In a few months the sale reached twenty thousand copies. The poem received great commendation both from the Quarterly and the Edinburgh Review.

Mr. Ellis, in his article in the Quarterly, thus wrote:

"There is nothing in Scott of the severe majesty of Milton, or of the terse composition of Pope, or the elaborate elegance of Campbell, or the flowing and redundant diction of Southey; but there is a medley of bright images, and a diction tinged successively with the careless richness of Shakespeare, the antique simplicity of the old romances, the homeliness of vulgar ballads, and the sentimental glitter of the most modern poetry,—passing from the borders of the ludicrous to the sublime, alternately minute and energetic, sometimes artificial, and frequently negligent, but always full of spirit and vivacity, abounding in images that are striking at first sight to minds of every contexture, and never expressing a sentiment which it can cost the most ordinary reader any exertion to comprehend."

This seems to me to be a fair criticism, although the lucidity of Scott's poetry is not that which is most admired by modern critics. Fashion in these times delights in what is obscure and difficult to be understood, as if depth and profundity must necessarily be unintelligible to ordinary readers. In Scott's time, however, the fashion was different, and the popularity of his poems became almost universal. However, there are the same fire, vivacity, and brilliant coloring in all three of these masterpieces, as they were regarded two generations ago, reminding one of the witchery of Ariosto; yet there is no great variety in these poems such as we find in Byron, no great force of passion or depth of sentiment, but a sort of harmonious rhythm,—more highly prized in the earlier part of the century than in the latter, since Wordsworth and Tennyson have made us familiar with what is deeper and richer, as well as more artistic, in language and versification. But no one has denied Scott's originality and high merits, in contrast with the pompous tameness and conventionality of the poetry which arose when Johnson was the oracle of literary circles, and which still held the stage in Scott's day.

Even Scott's admirers, however, like Canning and Ellis, did not hesitate to say that they would like something different from anything he had already written. But this was not to be; and perhaps the reason why he soon after gave up writing poetry was the conviction that his genius as a poet did not lie in variety and richness, either of style or matter. His great fame was earned by his novels.

One thing greatly surprises me: Scott regarded Joanna Baillie as the greatest poetical genius of that day, and be derived more pleasure from reading Johnson's "London" and "The Vanity of Human Wishes" than from any other poetical composition. Indeed, there is nothing more remarkable in literary history than Scott's admiration of poetry inferior to his own, and his extraordinary modesty in the estimate of his own productions. Most poets are known for their morbid vanity, their self-consciousness, their feeling of superiority, and their depreciation of superior excellence; but Scott had eminently a healthy mind, as he had a healthy body, and shrank from exaggeration as he did from vulgarity in all its forms. It is probable that his own estimate of his poetry was nearer the truth than that of his admirers, who were naturally inclined to be partial.

There has been so much poetry written since "The Lady of the Lake" was published,—not only by celebrated poets like Wordsworth, Southey, Moore, Byron, Campbell, Keats, Shelley, Tennyson, Browning, Longfellow, Lowell, Whittier, Bryant, but also by many minor authors,—that the standard is now much higher than it was in the early part of the century. Much of that which then was regarded as very fine is now smiled at by the critics, and neglected by cultivated readers generally; and Scott has not escaped unfavorable criticism.

It has been my object to present the subject of this Lecture historically rather than critically,—to show the extraordinary popularity of Scott as a poet among his contemporaries, rather than to estimate his merit at the present time. I confess that most of "Marmion," as also of the "Lady of the Lake," is tame to me, and deficient in high poetic genius. Doubtless we are all influenced by the standards of our own time, and the advances making in literature as well as in science and art. Yet this change in the opinions of critics does not apply to Byron's "Childe Harold," which is as much, if not as widely, admired now as when it was first published. We think as highly too of "The Deserted Village," the "Elegy in a Country Churchyard," and the "Cotter's Saturday Night," as our fathers did. And men now think much more highly of the merits of Shakspeare than they have at any period since he lived; so that after all there is an element in true poetry which does not lose by time. In another hundred years, the verdicts of critics as to the greater part of the poems of Tennyson, Wordsworth, Browning, and Longfellow, may be very different from what they now are, while some of their lyrics may be, as they are now, pronounced immortal.

Poetry is both an inspiration and an art. The greater part of that which is now produced is made, not born. Those daintily musical and elaborate measures which are now the fashion, because they claim novelty, or reproduce the quaintness of an art so old as to be practically new, perhaps will soon again be forgotten or derided. What is simple, natural, appealing to the heart rather than to the head, may last when more pretentious poetry shall have passed away. Neither criticism nor contemporary popularity can decide such questions.

Scott himself seemed to take a true view. In a letter to Miss Seward, he said:—

"The immortality of poetry is not so firm a point in my creed as the immortality of the soul."

'I've lived too long, And seen the death of much immortal song.'

"Nay, those that have really attained their literary immortality have gained it under very hard conditions. To some it has not attached till after death. To others it has been the means of lauding personal vices and follies which had otherwise been unremembered in their epitaphs; and all enjoy the same immortality under a condition similar to that of Noureddin in an Eastern tale. Noureddin, you remember, was to enjoy the gift of immortality, but with this qualification,—that he was subjected to long naps of forty, fifty, or a hundred years at a time. Even so Homer and Virgil slumbered through whole centuries. Shakspeare himself enjoyed undisturbed sleep from the age of Charles I., until Garrick waked him. Dryden's fame has nodded; that of Pope begins to be drowsy; Chaucer is as sound as a top, and Spenser is snoring in the midst of his commentators. Milton, indeed, is quite awake; but, observe, he was at his very outset refreshed with a nap of half-a-century; and in the midst of all this we sons of degeneracy talk of immortality! Let me please my own generation, and let those who come after us judge of their facts and my performances as they please; the anticipation of their neglect or censure will affect me very little."

In 1812 the poet-lawyer was rewarded with the salary of a place whose duties he had for some years performed without pay,—that of Clerk of Sessions, worth L800 per annum. Thus having now about L1500 as an income, independently of his earnings by the pen, Scott gave up his practice as an advocate, and devoted himself entirely to literature. At the same time he bought a farm of somewhat more than a hundred acres on the banks of the beautiful Tweed, about five miles from Ashestiel, and leaving to its owners the pretty place in which he had for six years enjoyed life and work, he removed to the cottage at Abbotsford,—for thus he named his new purchase, in memory of the abbots of Melrose, who formerly owned all the region, and the ruins of whose lovely abbey stood not far away. Of the L4000 for this purchase half was borrowed from his brother, and the other half on the pledge of the profits of a poem that was projected but not written,—"Rokeby."

Scott ought to have been content with Ashestiel; or, since every man wishes to own his home, he should have been satisfied with the comfortable cottage which he built at Abbotsford, and the modest improvements that his love for trees and shrubs enabled him to make. But his aspirations led him into serious difficulties. With all his sagacity and good sense, Scott never seemed to know when he was well off. It was a fatal mistake both for his fame and happiness to attempt to compete with those who are called great in England and Scotland,—that is, peers and vast landed proprietors. He was not alone in this error, for it has generally been the ambition of fortunate authors to acquire social as well as literary distinction,—thus paying tribute to riches, and virtually abdicating their own true position, which is higher than any that rank or wealth can give. It has too frequently been the misfortune of literary genius to bow down to vulgar idols; and the worldly sentiments which this idolatry involves are seen in almost every fashionable novel which has appeared for a hundred years. In no country is this melancholy social slavery more usual than in England, with all its political freedom, although there are noble exceptions. The only great flaw in Scott's character was this homage to rank and wealth.

On the other hand, rank and wealth also paid homage to him as a man of genius; both Scotland and England received him into the most select circles, not only of their literary and political, but of their fashionable, life.

In 1811 Scott published "The Lord of the Isles," and in 1813, "Rokeby," neither of which was remarkable for either literary or commercial success, although both were well received. In 1814 he edited a nineteen-volume edition of Dean Swift's works, with a Life, and in the same year began—almost by accident—the real work of his own career, in "Waverley."

If public opinion is far different to-day from what it was in Scott's time in reference to his poetry, we observe the same change in regard to the source of his widest fame, his novels,—but not to so marked a degree, for it was in fiction that Scott's great gifts had their full fruition. Many a fine intellect still delights in his novels, though cultivated readers and critics differ as to their comparative merits. No two persons will unite in their opinions as to the three of those productions which they like most or least. It is so with all famous novels. Then, too, what man of seventy will agree with a man of thirty as to the comparative merits of Scott, Dickens, Thackeray, Trollope, George Eliot, Eugene Sue, Victor Hugo, Balzac, George Sand? How few read "Uncle Tom's Cabin," compared with the multitudes who read that most powerful and popular book forty years ago? How changing, if not transient, is the fame of the novelist as well as of the poet! With reference to him even the same generation changes its tastes. What filled us with delight as young men or women of twenty, is at fifty spurned with contempt or thrown aside with indifference. No books ever filled my mind and soul with the delight I had when, at twelve years of age, I read "The Children of the Abbey" and "Thaddeus of Warsaw," What man of eighty can forget the enthusiasm with which he read "Old Mortality" or "Ivanhoe" when he was in college?

Perhaps one test of a great book is the pleasure derived from reading it over and over again,—as we read "Don Quixote," or the dramas of Shakspeare, of whose infinite variety we never tire. Measured by this test, the novels of Sir Walter Scott are among the foremost works of fiction which have appeared in our world. They will not all retain their popularity from generation to generation, like "Don Quixote" or "The Pilgrim's Progress" or "The Vicar of Wakefield;" but these are single productions of their authors, while not a few of Scott's many novels are certainly still read by cultivated people,—if not with the same interest they excited when first published, yet with profit and admiration. They have some excellencies which are immortal,—elevation of sentiment, chivalrous regard for women, fascination of narrative (after one has waded through the learned historical introductory chapters), the absence of exaggeration, the vast variety of characters introduced and vividly maintained, and above all the freshness and originality of description, both of Nature and of man. Among the severest and most bigoted of New England Puritans, none could find anything corrupting or demoralizing in his romances; whereas Byron and Bulwer were never mentioned without a shudder, and even Shakspeare was locked up in book-cases as unfit for young people to read, and not particularly creditable for anybody to own. The unfavorable comments which the most orthodox ever made upon Scott were as to the repulsiveness of the old Covenanters, as he described them, and his sneers at Puritan perfections. Scott, however, had contempt, not for the Puritans, but for many of their peculiarities,—especially for their cant when it degenerated into hypocrisy.

One thing is certain, that no works of fiction have had such universal popularity both in England and America for so long a period as the Waverley Novels. Scott reigned as the undisputed monarch of the realm of fiction and romance for twenty-five years. He gave undiminished entertainment to an entire generation—and not that merely, but instruction—in his historical novels, although his views were not always correct,—as whose ever are? He who could charm millions of readers, learned and unlearned, for a quarter of a century must have possessed remarkable genius. Indeed, he was not only the central figure in English literature for a generation, but he was regarded as peculiarly original. Another style of novels may obtain more passing favor with modern readers, but Scott was justly famous; his works are to-day in every library, and form a delightful part of the education of every youth and maiden who cares to read at all; and he will as a novelist probably live after some who are now prime favorites will be utterly forgotten or ignored.

About 1830 Bulwer was in his early successes; about 1840 Dickens was the rage of his day; about 1850 Thackeray had taken his high grade; and it was about 1860 that George Eliot's power appeared. These still retain their own peculiar lines of popularity,—Bulwer with the romantic few, Thackeray with the appreciative intelligent, George Eliot with a still wider clientage, and Dickens with everybody, on account of his appeal to the universal sentiments of comedy and pathos. Scott's influence, somewhat checked during the growth of these reputations and the succession of fertile and accomplished writers on both sides of the Atlantic,—including the introspective analysts of the past fifteen years,—has within a decade been rising again, and has lately burst forth in a new group of historical romancers who seem to have "harked back" from the subjective fad of our day to Scott's healthy, adventurous objectivity. Not only so, but new editions of the Waverley Novels are coming one by one from the shrewd publishers who keep track of the popular taste, one of the most attractive being issued in Edinburgh at half-a-crown a volume.

The first of Scott's remarkable series of novels, "Waverley," published in 1814 when the author was forty-three years of age and at the height of his fame as a poet, took the fashionable and literary world by storm. The novel had been partly written for several years, but was laid aside, as his edition of Swift and his essays for the supplement of the "Encyclopaedia Britannica," and other prose writings, employed all the time he had to spare.

This hack-work was done by Scott without enthusiasm, to earn money for his investment in real estate, and is not of transcendent merit. Obscurer men than he had performed such literary drudgery with more ability, but no writer was ever more industrious. The amount of work which he accomplished at this period was prodigious, especially when we remember that his duties as sheriff and clerk of Sessions occupied eight months of the year. He was more familiar with the literary history of Queen Anne's reign than any subsequent historian, if we except Macaulay, whose brilliant career had not yet begun. He took, of course, a different view of Swift from the writers of the Edinburgh Review, and was probably too favorable in his description of the personal character of the Dean of St. Patrick's, who is now generally regarded as "inordinately ambitious, arrogant, and selfish; of a morose, vindictive, and haughty temper, utterly destitute of generosity and magnanimity, as well as of tenderness, fidelity, and compassion." Lord Jeffrey, in his Review, attacked Swift's moral character with such consummate ability as to check materially the popularity of his writings, which are universally admitted to be full of genius. His superb intellect and his morality present a sad contrast,—as in the cases of Bacon, Burns, and Byron,—which Scott, on account of the force of his Tory prejudices, did not sufficiently point out.

But as to the novel, when it suddenly appeared, it is not surprising that "Waverley" should at once have attained an unexampled popularity when we consider the mediocrity of all works of fiction at that time, if we except the Irish tales of Maria Edgeworth. Scott received from Constable L1000 for this romance, then deemed a very liberal remuneration for what cost him but a few months' work. The second and third volumes were written in one month. He wrote with remarkable rapidity when his mind was full of the subject; and his previous studies as an antiquary and as a collector of Scottish poetry and legends fitted him for his work, which was in no sense a task, but a most lively pleasure.

It is not known why Scott published this strikingly original work anonymously; perhaps it was because of his unusual modesty, and the fear that he might lose the popularity he had already enjoyed as a poet. But it immediately placed him on a higher literary elevation, since it was generally suspected that he was the author. He could not altogether disguise himself from the keen eyes of Jeffrey and other critics.

The book was received as a revelation. The first volume is not particularly interesting, but the story continually increases in interest to its close. It is not a dissection of the human heart; it is not even much of a love-story, but a most vivid narrative, without startling situations or adventures. Its great charm is its quiet humor,—not strained into witty expressions which provoke laughter, but a sort of amiable delineation of the character of a born gentleman, with his weaknesses and prejudices, all leaning to virtue's side. It is a description of manners peculiar to the Scottish gentry in the middle of the eighteenth century, especially among the Jacobite families then passing away.

Of course the popularity of this novel, at that time, was chiefly confined to the upper classes. In the first place the people could not afford to pay the price of the book; and, secondly, it was outside their sympathies and knowledge. Indeed, I doubt if any commonplace person, without culture or extended knowledge, can enjoy so refined a work, with so many learned allusions, and such exquisite humor, which appeals to a knowledge of the world in its higher aspects. It is one of the last books that an ignorant young lady brought up on the trash of ordinary fiction would relish or comprehend. Whoever turns uninterested from "Waverley" is probably unable to see its excellencies or enjoy its peculiar charms. It is not a book for a modern school-boy or school-girl, but for a man or woman in the highest maturity of mind, with a poetic or imaginative nature, and with a leaning perhaps to aristocratic sentiments. It is a rebuke to vulgarity and ignorance, which the minute and exaggerated descriptions of low life in the pages of Dickens certainly are not.

In February, 1815, "Guy Mannering" was published, the second in the series of the Waverley Novels, and was received by the intelligent reading classes with even more eclat than "Waverley," to which it is superior in many respects. It plunges at once in medias res, without the long and labored introductory chapters of its predecessor. It is interesting from first to last, and is an elaborate and well-told tale, written con amore, when Scott was in the maturity of his powers. It is full of incident and is delightful in humor. Its chief excellence is in the loftiness of its sentiments,—being one of the healthiest and wholesomest novels ever written, appealing to the heart as well as to the intellect, to be read over and over again, like "The Vicar of Wakefield," without weariness. It may be too aristocratic in its tone to please everybody, but it portrays the sentiments of its age in reference to squires and Scottish lairds, who were more distinguished for uprightness and manly duties than for brains and culture.

The fascination with which Scott always depicts the virtues of hospitality and trust in humanity makes a strong impression on the imagination. His heroes and heroines are not remarkable for genius, but shine in the higher glories of domestic affection and fidelity to trusts. Two characters in particular are original creations,—"Dominie Sampson" and "Meg Merrilies," whom no reader can forget,—the one, ludicrous for his simplicity; and the other a gypsy woman, weird and strange, more like a witch than a sibyl, but intensely human, and capable of the strongest attachment for those she loved.

"The easy and transparent flow of the style of this novel; its beautiful simplicity; the wild magnificence of its sketches of scenery; the rapid and ever brightening interest of the narrative; the unaffected kindness of feeling; the manly purity of thought, everywhere mingled with a gentle humor and homely sagacity,—but, above all, the rich variety and skilful contrast of character and manners, at once fresh in fiction, and stamped with the unforgeable seal of truth and nature, spoke to every heart and mind; and the few murmurs of pedantic criticism were lost in the voice of general delight which never fails to welcome the invention that introduces to the sympathy of the imagination a new group of immortal realities."

Scott received about L2000 for this favorite romance,—one entirely new in the realm of fiction,—which enabled him to pay off his most pressing debts, and indulge his taste for travel. He visited the Field of Waterloo, and became a social lion in both Paris and London. The Prince of Wales sent him a magnificent snuff-box set with diamonds, and entertained him with admiring cordiality at Carlton House,—for his authorship of "Waverley" was more than surmised, while his fame as a poet was second only to that of Byron. Then (in the spring of 1815) took place the first meeting of these two great bards, and their successive interviews were graced with mutual compliments. Scott did not think that Byron's reading was extensive either in poetry or history, in which opinion the industrious Scottish bard was mistaken; but he did justice ta Byron's transcendent genius, and with more charity than severity mourned over his departure from virtue. After a series of brilliant banquets at the houses of the great, both of rank and of fame, Scott returned to his native land to renew his varied and exhausting labors, having furnished his publishers with a volume of letters on the subjects which most interested him during his short tour. Everything he touched now brought him gold.

"Paul's Letters to his Kinsfolk," as he called this volume concerning his tour, was well received, but not with the enthusiasm which marked the publication of "Guy Mannering;" indeed, it had no special claim to distinction. "The Antiquary" followed in May of the next year, and though it lacked the romance of "Waverley" and the adventure of "Guy Mannering," it had even a larger sale. Scott himself regarded it as superior to both; but an author is not always the best judge of his own productions, and we do not accept his criticism. It probably cost him more labor; but it is an exhibition of his erudition rather than a revelation of himself or of Nature. It is certainly very learned; but learning does not make a book popular, nor is a work of fiction the place for a display of learning. If "The Antiquary" were published in these times, it would be pronounced pedantic. Readers are apt to skip names and learned allusions and scraps of Latin. As a story I think it inferior to "Guy Mannering," although it has great merits,—"a kind of simple, unsought charm,"—and is a transcript of actual Scottish life. It had a great success; Scott says in a letter to his friend Terry: "It is at press again, six thousand having been sold in six days." Before the novel was finished, the author had already projected his "Tales of My Landlord."

Scott was now at the flood-tide of his creative power, and his industry was as remarkable as his genius. There was but little doubt in the public mind as to the paternity of the Waverley Novels, and whatever Scott wrote was sure to have a large sale; so that every publisher of note was eager to have a hand in bringing his productions before the public. In 1816 appeared the "Edinburgh Annual Register," containing Scott's sketch of the year 1814, which, though very good, showed that the author was less happy in history than in fiction.

The first series of "Tales of My Landlord" was published by Murray, and not by Constable, who had brought out Scott's other works, and the book was received with unbounded enthusiasm. Many critics place "Old Mortality" in the highest niche of merit and fame. Frere of the Quarterly Review, Hallam, Boswell, Lamb, Lord Holland, all agreed that it surpassed his other novels. Bishop Heber said, "There are only two men in the world,—Walter Scott and Lord Byron." Lockhart regarded "Old Mortality" as the "Marmion" of Scott's novels; but the painting of the Covenanters gave offence to the more rigid of the Presbyterians. For myself, I have doubt as to the correctness of their criticisms. "Old Mortality," in contrast with the previous novels of Scott, has a place similar to the later productions of George Eliot as compared with her earlier ones. It is not so vivid a sketch of Scotch life as is given in "Guy Mannering." Like "The Antiquary," it is bookish rather than natural. From a literary point of view, it is more artistic than "Guy Mannering," and more learned. "The canvas is a broader one." Its characters are portrayed with great skill and power, but they lack the freshness which comes from actual contact with the people described, and with whom Scott was familiar as a youth in the course of his wanderings. It is more historical than realistic. In short, "Old Mortality" is another creation of its author's brain rather than a painting of real life. But it is justly famous, for it was the precursor of those brilliant historical romances from which so much is learned of great men already known to students. It was a new departure in literature.

Before Scott arose, historical novels were comparatively unknown. He made romance instructive, rather than merely amusing, and added the charm of life to the dry annals of the past. Cervantes does not portray a single great character known in Spanish history in his "Don Quixote," but he paints life as he has seen it. So does Goldsmith. So does George Eliot in "Silas Marner." She presents life, indeed, in "Romola,"—not, however, as she had personally observed it, but as drawn from books, recreating the atmosphere of a long gone time by the power of imagination.

The earlier works of Scott are drawn from memory and personal feeling, rather than from the knowledge he had gained by study. Of "Old Mortality" he writes to Lady Louisa Stuart: "I am complete master of the whole history of these strange times, both of persecutors and persecuted; so I trust I have come decently off."

The divisional grouping of these earlier novels by Scott himself is interesting. In the "Advertisement" to "The Antiquary" he says: "The present work completes a series of fictitious narratives, intended to illustrate the manners of Scotland at three different periods. WAVERLEY embraced the age of our fathers [''Tis Sixty Years Since'], GUY MANNERING that of our own youth, and THE ANTIQUARY refers to the last ten years of the eighteenth century." The dedication of "Tales of My Landlord" describes them as "tales illustrative of ancient Scottish manners, and of the traditions of their [his countrymen's] respective districts." They were—First Series: "The Black Dwarf" and "Old Mortality;" Second Series: "The Heart of Mid-Lothian;" Third Series: "The Bride of Lammermoor" and "A Legend of Montrose;" Fourth Series: "Count Robert of Paris" and "Castle Dangerous." These all (except the fourth series, in 1832) appeared in the six years from 1814 to 1820, and besides these, "Rob Roy," "Ivanhoe," and "The Monastery."

With the publication of "Old Mortality" in 1816, then, Scott introduced the first of his historical novels, which had great fascination for students. Who ever painted the old Cameronian with more felicity? Who ever described the peculiarities of the Scottish Calvinists during the reign of the last of the Stuarts with more truthfulness,—their severity, their strict and Judaical observance of the Sabbath, their hostility to popular amusements, their rigid and legal morality, their love of theological dogmas, their inflexible prejudices, their lofty aspirations? Where shall we find in literature a sterner fanatical Puritan than John Balfour of Burley, or a fiercer royalist than Graham of Claverhouse? As a love-story this novel is not remarkable. It is not in the description of passionate love that Scott anywhere excels. His heroines, with two or three exceptions, would be called rather tame by the modern reader, although they win respect for their domestic virtues and sterling elements of character. His favorite heroes are either Englishmen of good family, or Scotchmen educated in England,—gallant, cultivated, and reproachless, but without any striking originality or intellectual force.

"Rob Roy" was published in the latter part of 1817, and was received by the public with the same unabated enthusiasm which marked the appearance of "Guy Mannering" and the other romances. An edition of ten thousand was disposed of in two weeks, and the subsequent sale amounted to forty thousand more. The scene of this story is laid in the Highlands of Scotland, with an English hero and a Scottish heroine; and in this fascinating work the political history of the times (forty years earlier than the period of "Waverley") is portrayed with great impartiality. It is a description of the first Jacobite rising against George I. in the year 1715. In this novel one of the greatest of Scott's creations appears in the heroine, Diana Vernon,—rather wild and masculine, but interesting from her courage and virtue. The character of Baillie Jarvie is equally original and more amusing.

The general effect of "Rob Roy," as well as of "Waverley" and "Old Mortality," was to make the Scottish Highlanders and Jacobites interesting to English readers of opposite views and feelings, without arousing hostility to the reigning royal family. The Highlanders a hundred years ago were viewed by the English with sentiments nearly similar to those with which the Puritan settlers of New England looked upon the Indians,—at any rate, as freebooters, robbers, and murderers, who were dangerous to civilization; and the severities of the English government toward these lawless clans, both as outlaws and as foes of the Hanoverian succession, were generally condoned by public opinion. Scott succeeded in producing a better feeling among both the conquerors and the conquered. He modified general sentiment by his impartial and liberal views, and allayed prejudices. The Highlanders thenceforth were regarded as a body of men with many interesting traits, and capable of becoming good subjects of the Crown; while their own hatred and contempt of the Lowland Saxon were softened by the many generous and romantic incidents of these tales. Two hitherto hostile races were drawn into neighborly sympathy. Travellers visited the beautiful Highland retreats, and returned with enthusiastic impressions of the country. To no other man does Scotland owe so great a debt of gratitude as to Walter Scott, not only for his poetry and novels, but for showing the admirable traits of a barren country and a fierce population, and contributing to bring them within the realm of civilization. A century or two ago the Highlands of Scotland were peopled by a race in a state of perpetual conflict with civilization, averse to labor, gaining (except such of them as were enrolled in the English Army) a precarious support by plunder, black-mailing, smuggling, and other illegal pursuits. Now they compose a body of hard-working, intelligent, and law-abiding laborers, cultivating farms, raising cattle and sheep, and pursuing the various branches of industry which lead to independence, if not to wealth. The traveller among the Highlanders feels as secure and is made as comfortable as in any part of the island; while revelations of their shrewd intelligence and unsuspected wit, in the stories of Barrie and Crockett, show what a century of Calvinistic theology—as the chief mental stimulant—has done in developing blossoms from that thistle-like stock.

Scott had now all the fame and worldly prosperity which any literary man could attain to,—for his authorship of the novels, although unacknowledged, was more and more generally believed, and after 1821 not denied. He lived above the atmosphere of envy, honored by all classes of people, surrounded with admiring friends and visitors. He had an income of at least L10,000 a year. Wherever he journeyed he was treated with the greatest distinction. In London he was cordially received as a distinguished guest in any circle he chose. The highest nobles paid homage to him. The King made him a baronet,—the first purely literary man in England to receive that honor. He now became ambitious to increase his lands; and the hundred acres of farm at Abbotsford were enlarged by new purchases, picturesquely planted with trees and shrubberies, while "the cottage grew to a mansion, and the mansion to a castle," with its twelve hundred surrounding acres, cultivated and made beautiful.

Scott's correspondence with famous people was immense, besides his other labors as farmer, lawyer, and author. Few persons of rank or fame visited Edinburgh without paying their respects to its most eminent citizen. His country house was invaded by tourists. He was on terms of intimacy with some of the proudest nobles of Scotland. His various works were the daily food not only of his countrymen, but of all educated Europe. "Station, power, wealth, beauty, and genius strove with each other in every demonstration of respect and worship."

And yet in the midst of this homage and increasing prosperity, one of the most fortunate of human beings, Scott's head was not turned. His habitual modesty preserved his moral health amid all sorts of temptation. He never lost his intellectual balance. He assumed no airs of superiority. His manners were simple and unpretending to the last. He praised all literary productions except his own. His life in Edinburgh was plain, though hospitable and free; and he seemed to care for few luxuries aside from books, of which life made a large collection. The furniture of his houses in Edinburgh and at Abbotsford was neither showy nor luxurious. He was extraordinarily fond of dogs and all domestic animals, who—sympathetic creatures as they are—unerringly sought him out and lavished affection upon him.

When Scott lived in Castle Street he was not regarded by Edinburgh society as particularly brilliant in conversation, since he never aspired to lead by learned disquisitions. He told stories well, with great humor and pleasantry, to amuse rather than to instruct. His talk was almost homely. The most noticeable thing about it was common-sense. Lord Cockburn said of him that "his sense was more wonderful than his genius." He did not blaze like Macaulay or Mackintosh at the dinner-table, nor absorb conversation like Coleridge and Sydney Smith. "He disliked," says Lockhart, "mere disquisitions in Edinburgh and prepared impromptus in London." A doctrinaire in society was to him an abomination. Hence, until his fame was established by the admiration of the world, Edinburgh professors did not see his greatness. To them he seemed commonplace, but not to such men as Hallam or Moore or Rogers or Croker or Canning.

Notwithstanding Scott gave great dinners occasionally, they appear to have been a bore to him, and he very rarely went out to evening entertainments, although at public dinners his wit and sense made him a favorite chairman. He retired early at night and rose early in the morning, and his severest labors were before breakfast,—his principal meal. He always dined at home on Sunday, with a few intimate friends, and his dinner was substantial and plain. He drank very little wine, and preferred a glass of whiskey-toddy to champagne or port. He could not distinguish between madeira and sherry. He was neither an epicure nor a gourmand.

After Scott had become world-famous, his happiest hours were spent in enlarging and adorning his land at Abbotsford, and in erecting and embellishing his baronial castle. In this his gains were more than absorbed. He loved that castle more than any of his intellectual creations, and it was not completed until nearly all his novels were written. Without personal extravagance, he was lavish in the sums he spent on Abbotsford. Here he delighted to entertain his distinguished visitors, of whom no one was more welcome than Washington Irving, whom he liked for his modesty and quiet humor and unpretending manners. Lockhart writes: "It would hardly, I believe, be too much to affirm that Sir Walter Scott entertained under his roof, in the course of the seven or eight brilliant seasons when his prosperity was at its height, as many persons of distinction in rank, in politics, in art, in literature, and in science, as the most princely nobleman of his age ever did in the like space of time."

One more unconscious, apparently, of his great powers has been rarely seen among literary men, especially in England and France,—affording a striking contrast in this respect to Dryden, Pope, Voltaire, Byron, Bulwer, Macaulay, Carlyle, Hugo, Dumas, and even Tennyson. Great lawyers and great statesmen are rarely so egotistical and conceited as poets, novelists, artists, and preachers. Scott made no pretensions which were offensive, or which could be controverted. His greatest aspiration seems to have been to be a respectable landed proprietor, and to found a family. An English country gentleman was his beau-ideal of happiness and contentment. Perhaps this was a weakness; but it was certainly a harmless and amiable one, and not so offensive as intellectual pride. Scott indeed, while without vanity, had pride; but it was of a lofty kind, disdaining meanness and cowardice as worse even than transgressions which have their origin in unregulated passions.

From the numerous expletives which abound in Scott's letters, such as are not now considered in good taste among gentlemen, I infer that like most gentlemen of his social standing in those times he was in the habit of using, when highly excited or irritated, what is called profane language. After he had once given vent to his feelings, however, he was amiable and forgiving enough for a Christian sage, who never harbored malice or revenge. He had great respect for the military profession,—probably because it was the great prop and defence of government and established institutions, for he was the most conservative of aristocrats. And yet his aristocratic turn of mind never conflicted with his humane disposition,—never made him a snob. He abhorred all vulgarity. He admired genius and virtue in whatever garb they appeared. He was as kind to his servants, and to poor and unfortunate people, as he was to his equals in society, being eminently big-hearted. It was only fools, who made great pretensions, that he despised and treated with contempt.

No doubt Scott was bored by the numerous visitors, whether invited or uninvited, who came from all parts of Great Britain, from America, and even from continental Europe, to do homage to his genius, or to gratify their curiosity. Sometimes as many as thirty guests sat down to his banqueting-table at once. He entertained in baronial style, but without ostentation or prodigality, and on old-fashioned dishes. He did not like French cooking, and his simple taste in the matters of beverage we have already noted. The people to whom he was most attentive were the representatives of ancient families, whether rich or poor.

Scott was very kind to literary men in misfortune, and his chosen friends were authors of eminence,—like Miss Edgeworth, Joanna Baillie, Thomas Moore, Crabbe, Southey, Wordsworth, Sir Humphry Davy, Dr. Wollaston the chemist, Henry Mackenzie, etc. He was very intimate with the Duke of Buccleuch, Lord Montagu, and other noblemen. He was visited by dukes and princes, as well as by ladies of rank and fame. George IV. sent him valuable presents, and showed him every mark of high consideration. Cambridge and Oxford tendered to him honorary degrees. Wherever he travelled, he was received with honor and distinction and flatteries. But he did not like flatteries; and this was one reason why he did not openly acknowledge his authorship of his novels, until all doubt was removed by the masterly papers of John Leycester Adolphus in 1821.

Scott's correspondence must have been enormous, for his postage bills amounted to L150 per annum, besides the aid he received from franks, which with his natural economy he made no scruple in liberally using. Perhaps his most confidential letters were, like Byron's, written to his publishers and printers, though many such were addressed to his son-in-law Lockhart, and to his dearest friend William Erskine. But he had also some admirable women friends, with whom he corresponded freely. Some of the choicest of his recently-published Letters are to Lady Abercorn, who was an intimate and helpful friend; to Miss Anna Seward, a literary confidant of many years; to Lady Louisa Stuart, daughter of the Earl of Bute, and granddaughter of Mary Wortley Montagu, one of the few who knew from the first of his "Waverley" authorship; and to Mrs. John Hughes, an early and most affectionate friend, whose grandson, Thomas Hughes, has made famous the commonplace name of "Tom Brown" in our own day.

Scott's letters show the man,—frank, cordial, manly, tender, generous, finding humor in difficulties, pleasure in toil, satisfaction in success, a proud courage in adversity, and the purest happiness in the affection of his friends.

How Scott found time for so much work is a mystery,—writing nearly three novels a year, besides other literary labors, attending to his duties in the Courts, overlooking the building of Abbotsford and the cultivation of his twelve hundred acres, and entertaining more guests than Voltaire did at Ferney. He was too much absorbed by his legal duties and his literary labors to be much of a traveller; yet he was a frequent visitor to London, saw something of Paris, journeyed through Ireland, was familiar with the Lake region in England, and penetrated to every interesting place in Scotland. He did not like London, and took little pleasure in the ovations he received from people of rank and fashion. As a literary lion at the tables of "the great," he disappointed many of his admirers, since he made no effort to shine. It was only in his modest den in Castle Street, or in rambles in the country or at Abbotsford, that he felt himself at home, and appeared to the most advantage.

It would be pleasant to leave this genuinely great man in the full flush of health, creative power, inward delight and outward prosperity; but that were to leave unwritten the finest and noblest part of his life. It is to the misfortunes which came upon him that we owe both a large part of his splendid achievements in literature and our knowledge of the most admirable characteristics of the man.

My running record of his novels last mentioned "The Monastery," issued in 1820, in the same year with perhaps the prime favorite of all his works, "Ivanhoe," the romantic tale of England in the crusading age of Richard the Lion-Hearted. In 1821 he put forth the fascinating Elizabethan tale of "Kenilworth." In 1822 came "The Pirate" (the tale of sea and shore that inspired James Fenimore Cooper to write "The Pilot" and his other sea-stories) and "The Fortunes of Nigel;" in 1823, "Peveril of the Peak" and "Quentin Durward," both among his best; in 1824, "St. Ronan's Well" and "Redgauntlet;" and in 1825, two more Tales of the Crusaders,—"The Betrothed" and "The Talisman," the latter probably sharing with "Ivanhoe" the greatest popularity.

In the winter of 1825-1826, a widespread area of commercial distress resulted in the downfall of many firms; and among others to succumb were Hurst & Robinson, publishers, whose failure precipitated that of Constable & Co., Scott's publishers, and of the Ballantynes his printers, with whom he was a secret partner, who were largely indebted to the Constables and so to the creditors of that house. The crash came January 16, 1826, and Scott found himself in debt to the amount of about L147,000,—or nearly $735,000.

Such a vast misfortune, overwhelming a man at the age of fifty-five, might well crush out all life and hope and send him into helpless bankruptcy, with the poor consolation that, though legally responsible, he was not morally bound to pay other people's debts. But Scott's own sanguine carelessness had been partly to blame for the Ballantyne failure; and he faced the billow as it suddenly appeared, bowed to it in grief but not in shame, and, while not pretending to any stoicism, instantly resolved to devote the remainder of his life to the repayment of the creditors.

The solid substance of manliness, honor, and cheerful courage in his character; the genuine piety with which he accepted the "dispensation," and wrote "Blessed be the name of the Lord;" the unexampled steadiness with which he comforted his wife and daughters while girding himself to the daily work of intellectual production amidst his many distresses; the sweetness of heart with which he acknowledged the sympathy and declined the offers of help that poured in upon him from every side (one poor music teacher offering his little savings of L600, and an anonymous admirer urging upon him a loan of L30,000),—all this is the beauty that lighted up the black cloud of Scott's adversity. His efforts were finally successful, although at the cost of his bodily existence. Lockhart says: "He paid the penalty of health and life, but he saved his honor and his self-respect.

"'The glory dies not, and the grief is past.'"

"Woodstock," then about half-done, was completed in sixty-nine days, and issued in March, 1826, bringing in about $41,000 to his creditors. His "Life of Napoleon," published in June, 1827, produced $90,000. In 1827, also, Scott issued "Chronicles of the Canongate," First Series (several minor stories), and the First Series of "Tales of a Grandfather;" in 1828, "The Fair Maid of Perth" (Second Series of the "Chronicles"), and more "Tales of a Grandfather;" in 1829, "Anne of Geierstein," more "Tales of a Grandfather," the first volume of a "History of Scotland," and a collective edition of the Waverley Novels in forty-eight volumes, with new Introductions, Notes, and careful corrections and improvements of the text throughout,—in itself an immense labor; in 1830, more "Tales of a Grandfather," a three volume "History of France," and Volume II. of the "History of Scotland;" in 1831, and finally, a Fourth Series of "Tales of My Landlord," including "Count Robert of Paris" and "Castle Dangerous."

This completes the list of Scott's greater productions; but it should be remembered that during all the years of his creative work he was incessantly doing critical and historical writing,—producing numerous reviews, essays, ballads; introductions to divers works; biographical sketches for Ballantyne's "Novelist's Library,"—the works of fifteen celebrated English writers of fiction, Fielding, Smollett, etc.; letters and pamphlets; dramas; even a few religious discourses; and his very extensive and interesting private correspondence. He was such a marvel of productive brain-power as has seldom, if ever, been known to humanity.

The illness and death of Scott's beloved wife, but four short months after his commercial disaster, was a profound grief to him; and under the exhausting pressure of incessant work during the five years following, his bodily power began to fail,—so that in October, 1831, after a paralytic shock, he stopped all literary labor and went to Italy for recuperation. The following June he returned to London, weaker in both mind and body; was taken to Abbotsford in July; and on the 21st September, 1832, with his children about him, the kindly, manly, brave, and tender spirit passed away.

At the time of his death Sir Walter had reduced his great indebtedness to $270,000. A life insurance of $110,000, $10,000 in the hands of his trustees, and $150,000 advanced by Robert Cadell, an Edinburgh bookseller, on the copyrights of Scott's works, cleared away the last remnant of the debt; and within twenty years Cadell had reimbursed himself, and made a handsome profit for his own account and that of the family of Sir Walter.

The moneyed details of Scott's literary life have been made a part of this brief sketch, both because his phenomenal fecundity and popularity offer a convenient measure of his power, and because the fiscal misfortune of his later life revealed a simple grandeur of character even more admirable than his mental force. "Scott ruined!" exclaimed the Earl of Dudley when he heard of the trouble. "The author of Waverley ruined! Good God! let every man to whom he has given months of delight give him a sixpence, and he will rise to-morrow morning richer than Rothschild!" But the sturdy Scotchman accepted no dole; he set himself to work out his own salvation. William Howitt, in his "Homes and Haunts of Eminent British Poets," estimated that Scott's works had produced as profits to the author or his trustees at least L500,000,—nearly $2,500,000: this in 1847, over fifty years ago, and only forty-five years from Scott's first original publication. Add the results of the past fifty years, and, remembering that this gives but the profits, conceive the immense sums that have been freely paid by the intelligent British public for their enjoyment of this great author's writings. Then, besides all this, recall the myriad volumes of Scott sold in America, which paid no profit to the author or his heirs. There is no parallel.

Voltaire's renown and monetary rewards, as the master-writer of the eighteenth century, offer the only case in modern times that approaches Scott's success; yet Voltaire's vast wealth was largely the result of successful speculation. As a purely popular author, whose wholesome fancy, great heart, and tireless industry, has delighted millions of his fellow-men, Scott stands alone; while, as a man, he holds the affection and respect of the world. Even though it be that the fashion of his workmanship passeth away, wonder not, lament not. With Mithridates he could say, "I have lived." What great man can say more?



LORD BYRON.

1788-1824.

POETIC GENIUS.

It is extremely difficult to depict Lord Byron, and even presumptuous to attempt it. This is not only because he is a familiar subject, the triumphs and sorrows of whose career have been often portrayed, but also because he presents so many contradictions in his life and character,—lofty yet degraded, earnest yet frivolous, an impersonation of noble deeds and sentiments, and also of almost every frailty which Christianity and humanity alike condemn. No great man has been more extravagantly admired, and none more bitterly assailed; but generally he is regarded as a fallen star,—a man with splendid gifts which he wasted, for whom pity is the predominant sentiment in broad and generous minds. With all his faults, the English-speaking people are proud of him as one of the greatest lights in our literature; and in view of the brilliancy of his literary career his own nation in particular does not like to have his defects and vices dwelt upon. It blushes and condones. It would fain blot out his life and much of his poetry if, without them, it could preserve the best and grandest of his writings,—that ill-disguised autobiography which goes by the name of "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage," in which he soars to loftier flights than any English poet from Milton to his own time. Like Shakespeare, like Dryden, like Pope, like Burns, he was a born poet; while most of the other poets, however eminent and excellent, were simply made,—made by study and labor on a basis of talent, rather than exalted by native genius as he was, speaking out what he could not help, and revelling in the richness of unconscious gifts, whether for good or evil.

Byron was a man with qualities so generous, yet so wild, that Lamartine was in doubt whether to call him angel or devil. But, whether angel or devil, his life is the saddest and most interesting among all the men of letters in the nineteenth century.

Of course, most of our material comes from his Life and Letters, as edited by his friend and brother-poet, Thomas Moore. This biographer, I think, has been unwisely candid in the delineation of Byron's character, making revelations that would better have remained in doubt, and on which friendship at least should have prompted him to a discreet silence.

Lord Byron was descended from the Byrons of Normandy who accompanied William the Conqueror in his invasion of England, of which illustrious lineage the poet was prouder than of his poetry. In the reign of Henry VIII., on the dissolution of the monasteries, a Byron came into possession of the old mediaeval abbey of Newstead. In the reign of James I., Sir John Byron was made a knight of the Order of the Bath. In 1784 the father of the poet, a dissipated captain of the Guards, being in embarrassed circumstances, married a rich Scotch heiress of the name of Gordon. Handsome and reckless, "Mad Jack Byron" speedily spent his wife's fortune; and when he died, his widow, being reduced to a pittance of L150 a year, retired to Scotland to live, with her infant son who had been born in London. She was plain Mrs. Byron, widow of a "younger son," with but little expectation of future rank. She was a woman of caprices and eccentricities, and not at all fitted to superintend the education of her wayward boy.

Hence the childhood and youth of Byron were sad and unfortunate. His temper was violent and passionate. A malformation of his foot made him peculiarly sensitive, and the unwise treatment of his mother, fond and harsh by turns, destroyed maternal authority. At five years of age, he was sent to a day-school in Aberdeen, where he made but slim attainments. Though excitable and ill-disciplined, he is said to have been affectionate and generous, and perfectly fearless. A fit of sickness rendered his removal from this school necessary, and he was sent to a summer resort among the Highlands. His early impressions were therefore favorable to the development of the imagination, coming as they did from mountains and valleys, rivulets and lakes, near the sources of the Dee. At the age of eight, he wrote verses and fell in love, like Dante at the age of nine.

On the death of the grandson of the old Lord Byron in 1794, this unpromising youth became the heir-apparent to the barony. Nor did he have to wait long; for soon after, his grand-uncle died, and the young Byron, whose mother was struggling with poverty, became a ward of Chancery; and the Earl of Carlisle—one of the richest and most powerful noblemen of the realm, a nephew by marriage of the deceased peer—was appointed his guardian. This cold, formal, and politic nobleman took but little interest in his ward, leaving him to the mismanagement of his mother, who, with her boy, at the age of ten, now removed to Newstead, the seat of his ancestors,—the government, meanwhile, for some reason which is not explained, having conferred on her a pension of L300 a year.

One of the first things that Mrs. Byron did on her removal to Newstead was to intrust her son to the care of a quack in Nottingham, in order to cure him of his lameness. As the doctor was not successful, the boy was removed to London with the double purpose of effecting a cure under an eminent surgeon, and of educating him according to his rank; for his education thus far had been sadly neglected, although it would appear that he was an omnivorous reader in a desultory kind of way. The lameness was never cured, and through life was a subject of bitter sensitiveness on his part. Dr. Glennie of Dulwich, to whose instruction he was now confided, found him hard to manage, because of his own undisciplined nature and the perpetual interference of his mother. His progress was so slow in Latin and Greek that at the end of two years, in 1801, he was removed to Harrow,—one of the great public schools of England, of which Dr. Drury was head-master. For a year or two, owing to that constitutional shyness which is so often mistaken for pride, young Byron made but few friendships, although he had for school-fellows many who were afterwards distinguished, including Sir Robert Peel. Before he left this school for Cambridge, however, he had made many friends whom he never forgot, being of a very generous and loving disposition. I think that those years at Harrow were the happiest he ever knew, for he was under a strict discipline, and was too young to indulge in those dissipations which were the bane of his subsequent life. But he was not distinguished as a scholar, in the ordinary sense, although in his school-boy days he wrote some poetry remarkable for his years, and read a great many books. He read in bed, read when no one else read, read while eating, read all sorts of books, and was capable of great sudden exertions, but not of continuous drudgeries, which he always abhorred. In the year 1803, when a youth of fifteen, he formed a strong attachment for a Miss Chaworth, two years his senior, who, looking upon him as a mere schoolboy, treated him cavalierly, and made some slighting allusion to "that lame boy." This treatment both saddened and embittered him. When he left school for college he had the reputation of being an idle and a wilful boy, with a very imperfect knowledge of Latin and Greek.

Young Byron entered Trinity College in 1805, poorly prepared, and was never distinguished there for those attainments which win the respect of tutors and professors. He wasted his time, and gave himself up to pleasures,—riding, boating, bathing, and social hilarities,—yet reading more than anybody imagined, and writing poetry, for which he had an extraordinary facility, yet not contending for college prizes. His intimate friends were few, but to his chosen circle he was faithful and affectionate. No one at this time would have predicted his future eminence. A more unpromising youth did not exist within the walls of his college. He had a most unfortunate temper, which would have made him unhappy under any circumstances in which he could be placed. This temper, which he inherited from his mother—passionate, fitful, defiant, restless, wayward, melancholy—inclined him naturally to solitude, and often isolated him even from his friends and companions. He brooded upon supposed wrongs, and created in his soul strong likes and dislikes. What is worse, he took no pains to control this temperament; and at last it mastered him, drove him into every kind of folly and rashness, and made him appear worse than he really was.

This inborn tendency to moodiness, pride, and recklessness should be considered in our estimate of Byron, and should modify any harshness of judgment in regard to his character, which, in some other respects, was interesting and noble. He was not at all envious, but frank, warm-hearted, and true to those he loved, who were, however, very few. If he had learned self-control, and had not been spoiled by his mother, his career might have been far different from what it was, and would have sustained the admiration which his brilliant genius called out from both high and low.

As it was, Byron left college with dangerous habits, with no reputation for scholarship, with but few friends, and an uncertain future. His bright and witty bursts of poetry, wonderful as the youthful effusions of Dryden and Pope, had made him known to a small circle, but had not brought fame, for which his soul passionately thirsted from first to last. For a nobleman he was poor and embarrassed, and his youthful extravagances had tied up his inherited estate. He was cast upon the world like a ship without a rudder and without ballast. He was aspiring indeed, but without a plan, tired out and disgusted before he was twenty-one, having prematurely exhausted the ordinary pleasures of life, and being already inclined to that downward path which leadeth to destruction. This was especially marked in his relations with women, whom generally he flattered, despised, and deserted, as the amusements of an idle hour, and yet whose society he could not do without in the ardor of his impulsive and ungoverned affections. In that early career of unbridled desire for excitement and pleasure, nowhere do we see a sense of duty, a respect for the opinions of the good, a reverence for religious institutions, or self-restraint of any kind; but these defects were partly covered over by his many virtues and his exalted rank.

Thus far Byron was comparatively unknown. Not yet was he even a favorite in society, beautiful and brilliant as he was; for he had few friends, not much money, and many enemies, whom he made by his scorn and defiance,—a born aristocrat, without having penetrated those exclusive circles to which his birth entitled him. He was always quarrelling with his mother, and was treated with indifference by his guardian. He was shunned by those who adhered to the conventionalities of life, and was pursued by bailiffs and creditors,—since his ancestral estates, small for his rank, were encumbered and mortgaged, and Newstead Abbey itself was in a state of dilapidation.

Within a year from leaving Cambridge, in 1807, Byron published a volume of his juvenile poems; and although they were remarkable for a young man of twenty, they were not of sufficient merit to attract the attention of the public. At this time he was abstemious in eating, wishing to reduce a tendency to corpulence. He could practise self-denial if it were to make his person attractive, especially to ladies. Nor was he idle. His reading, if desultory, was vast; and from the list of books which his biographer has noted it would seem that Macaulay never read more than Byron in a given time,—all the noted historians of England, Germany, Rome, and Greece, with innumerable biographies, miscellanies, and even divinity, the raw material which he afterwards worked into his poems. How he found time to devour so many solid books is to me a mystery. These were not merely European works, but Asiatic also. He was not a critical scholar, but he certainly had a passing familiarity with almost everything in literature worth knowing, which he subsequently utilized, as seen in his "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage." A college reputation was nothing to him, any more than it was to Swift, Goldsmith, Churchill, Gibbon, and many other famous men of letters, who left on record their dislike of the English system of education. Among these were even such men as Addison, Cowper, Milton, and Dryden, who were scholars, but who alike felt that college honors and native genius did not go hand in hand,—which might almost be regarded as the rule, but for a few remarkable exceptions, like Sir Robert Peel and Gladstone. And yet it would be unwise to decry college honors, since not one in a hundred of those who obtain them by their industry, aptness, and force of will can lay claim to what is called genius,—the rarest of all gifts. Moreover, how impossible it is for college professors to detect in students, with whom they are imperfectly acquainted, extraordinary faculties, more especially if the young men are apparently idle and negligent, and contemptuous of the college curriculum.

It was a bitter pill for Lord Byron when his juvenile poems, called "Hours of Idleness," were so severely attacked by the Edinburgh Review. They might have escaped the searching eyes of the critics had the author not been a lord. At that time the great Reviews had just been started; and it was the especial object of the Edinburgh Review to handle authors roughly,—to condemn and not to praise. Criticism was not then a science, as it became fifty years later, in the hands of Sainte-Beuve, who endeavored to review every production fairly and justly. There was nothing like justice entering into the head of Jeffrey or Sydney Smith or Brougham, or later on of Macaulay, whose articles were often written for political party effect. Critics, from the time of Swift down to the middle of the century, aimed to demolish enemies, and to make party capital; hence, as a general thing, their articles were not criticisms at all, but attacks. And as even an Achilles was vulnerable in his heel, so most intellectual giants have some weak point for the shafts of malice to penetrate. Yet it is the weaknesses of great men that people like to quote.

If Byron was humiliated, enraged, and embittered by the severity of the Edinburgh Review, he was not crushed. He rallied, collected his unsuspected strength, and shattered his opponents by one of the wittiest, most brilliant, and most unscrupulous satires in our literature, which he called "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers." At the height of his fame he regretted and suppressed this youthful production of malice and bitterness. Yet it was the beginning of his great career, both as to a consciousness of his own powers and in attracting the public attention. It was doubtless unwise, since he attacked many who were afterwards his friends, and since he sowed the seeds of hatred among those who might otherwise have been his admirers or apologists. He had to learn the truth that "with what measure ye mete it shall be measured to you again." The creators of public opinion in reference to Byron have not been women of fashion, or men of the world, but literary lions themselves,—like Thackeray, who detested him, and the whole school of pharisaic ecclesiastical dignitaries, who abhorred in him sentiments which they condoned in Fielding, in Burns, in Rousseau, and in Voltaire.

Before his bitter satire was published, however, Byron took his seat in the House of Lords, not knowing any peer sufficiently to be introduced by him. His guardian, Lord Carlisle, treated him very shabbily, refusing to furnish to the Lord Chancellor some important information, of a technical kind, which refusal delayed the ceremony for several weeks, until the necessary papers could be procured from Cornwall relating to the marriage of one of his ancestors. Unfriended and alone, Byron sat on the scarlet benches of the House of Lords until he was formally admitted as a peer. But when the Lord Chancellor left the woolsack to congratulate him, and with a smiling face extended his hand, the embittered young peer bowed coldly and stiffly, and simply held out two or three of his fingers,—an act of impudence for which there was no excuse.

It is difficult to understand why Lord Byron should have had so few friends or even acquaintances at that time among people of his rank. At twenty-one, he was a lonely and solitary man, mortified by the attack of the Edinburgh Review, exasperated by injustice, morose even to misanthropy, and decidedly sceptical in his religious opinions. Newstead Abbey was a burden to him, since he could not keep it up. He owed L10,000. He had no domestic ties, except to a mother with whom he could not live. His poetry had not brought him fame, for which of all things he most ardently thirsted. His love affairs were unfortunate, and tinged his soul with sadness and melancholy. Nor had fashion as yet marked him for her own. He craved excitement, and society to him was dull and conventional.

It is not surprising that under these circumstances Byron made up his mind to travel: he did not much care whither, provided he had new experiences. "The grand tour" which educated young men of leisure and fortune took in that day had no charm for him, since he wished to avoid rather than to seek society in those cities which the English frequented. He did not care to see the literary lions of France or Germany or Italy, for though a nobleman, he was too young and unimportant to be much noticed, and he was too shy and too proud to make advances which might be rebuffed, wounding his amour propre.

He set out on his pilgrimage the latter part of June, 1809, in a ship bound for Lisbon, with a small suite of servants. Going to a land where Nature was most enchanting, he was sufficiently enthusiastic over the hills and vales and villages of Portugal. As for comfort, he expected little, and found less; but to this he was indifferent so long as he could swim in the Tagus, and ride on a mule, and procure eggs and wine. He was delighted with Cadiz, to him a Cythera, with its beautiful but uneducated women, where the wives of peasants were on a par with the wives of dukes in cultivation, and where the minds of both had but one idea,—that of intrigue. He hastily travelled through Spain on horseback, in August, reaching Gibraltar, from which he embarked for Malta and the East.

It was Greece and Turkey that Byron most wished to see and know; and, favored by introductions, he was cordially received by governors and pashas. At Athens, and other classical spots, he lingered enchanted, yet suppressing his enthusiasm in the contempt he had for the affected raptures of ordinary travellers. It was not the country alone, with its classical associations, which interested him, but also its maidens, with their dark hair and eyes, whom he idealized almost into goddesses. Everything he saw was picturesque, unique, and fascinating. The days and weeks flew rapidly away in dreamy enchantment.

After nearly three months at Athens, Byron embarked for Smyrna, and explored the ruins of the old Ionian cities, thence proceeding to Constantinople, with a view of visiting Persia and the farther East. In a letter to Mr. Henry Drury, he says:—

"I have left my home, and seen part of Africa and Asia, and a tolerable portion of Europe. I have been with generals and admirals, princes and pashas, governors and ungovernables. Albania, indeed, I have seen more than any Englishman, except Mr. Leake,—a country rarely visited, from the savage character of the natives, but abounding more in natural beauties than the classical regions of Greece."

A glimpse of Byron's inner life at this time is caught in the following extract from a letter to another friend:

"I have now been nearly a year abroad, and hope you will find me an altered personage,—I do not mean in body, but in manners; for I begin to find out that nothing but virtue will do in this d—d world. I am tolerably sick of vice, which I have tried in its agreeable varieties, and mean on my return to cut all my dissolute acquaintance, leave off wine and carnal company, and betake myself to politics and decorum."

One thing we notice in most of the familiar letters of Byron,—that he makes frequent use of a vulgar expletive. But when I remember that the Prince of Wales, the Lord Chancellor, the judges, the lawyers, the ministers of the Crown, and many other distinguished people were accustomed to use the same expression, I would fain hope that it was not meant for profanity, but was a sort of fashionable slang intended only to be emphatic. Fifty years have seen a great improvement in the use of language, and the vulgarism which then appeared to be of slight importance is now regarded, almost universally with gentlemen, to be at least in very bad taste. How far Byron transgressed beyond the frequent use of this expletive, does not appear either in his letters or in his biography; yet from his irreverent nature, and the society with which he was associated, it is more than probable that in him profanity was added to the other vices of his times.

Especially did he indulge in drinking to excess in all convivial gatherings. It was seldom that gentlemen sat down to a banquet without each despatching two or three bottles of wine in the course of an evening. No wonder that gout was the pervading disease among county squires, and even among authors and statesman. Morality was not one of the features of English society one hundred years ago, except as it consisted in a scrupulous regard for domesticity, truth, and honor, and abhorrence of meanness and hypocrisy.

It would be difficult to point out any defects and excesses of which Byron was guilty at this period beyond what were common to other fashionable young men of rank and leisure, except a spirit of religious scepticism and impiety, and a wanton and inexcusable recklessness in regard to women, which made him a slave to his passions. The first alienated him, so far as he was known, from the higher respectable classes, who generally were punctilious in the outward observances of religion; and the second made him abhorred by the virtuous middle class, who never condoned his transgressions in this respect. But at this time his character was not generally known. It was not until he was seated on the pinnacle of fame that public curiosity penetrated the scandals of his private life. He was known only as a young nobleman in quest of the excitements of foreign travel, and his letters of introduction procured him all the society he craved. Not yet had he expressed bitterness and wrath against the country which gave him birth; he simply found England dull, and craved adventures in foreign lands as unlike England as he could find. The East stimulated his imagination, and revived his classical associations. He saw the Orient only as an enthusiastic poet would see it, and as Lamartine saw Jerusalem. But Byron was more curious about the pagan cities of antiquity than concerning the places consecrated by the sufferings of our Lord. He cared more to swim across the Hellespont with Leander than to wander over the sacred hills of Judaea; to idealize a beautiful peasant girl among the ruins of Greece, than converse with the monks of Palestine in their gloomy retreats.

The result of Byron's travels was seen in the first two cantos of "Childe Harold," showing alike the fertility of his mind and the aspirations of a lofty genius. These were published in 1812, soon after his return to England, at the age of twenty-four. They took England by storm, creating both surprise and admiration. Public curiosity and enthusiasm for the young poet, who had mounted to the front ranks of literature at a single leap, was unbounded and universal. As he himself wrote: "I awoke one morning and found myself famous."

Young Byron was now sought, courted, and adored, especially by ladies of the highest rank. Everybody was desirous to catch even a glimpse of the greatest poet that had appeared since Pope and Dryden; any palace or drawing-room he desired to enter was open to him. He was surfeited with roses and praises and incense. He alone took precedence over Scott and Coleridge and Moore and Campbell. For a time his pre-eminence in literature was generally conceded. He was the foremost man of letters of his day, and the greatest popular idol. His rank added to his eclat, since not many noblemen were distinguished for genius or literary excellence. His singular beauty of face and person, despite his slight lameness, attracted the admiring gaze of women. What Abelard was in the schools of philosophy, Byron was in the drawing-rooms of London. People forgot his antecedents, so far as they were known, in the intoxication of universal admiration and unbounded worship of genius. No poet in English history was ever seated on a prouder throne, and no heathen deity was ever more indifferent than he to the incense of idolaters.

Far be it from me to attempt an analysis of the merits of the poem with which the fame of Byron will be forever identified. Its great merits are universally conceded; and while it has defects,—great inequalities in both style and matter; some stanzas supernal in beauty, and others only mediocre,—on the whole, the poem is extraordinary. Byron adopted the Spenserian measure,—perhaps the most difficult of all measures, hard even to read aloud,—in which blank verse seems to blend with rhyme. It might be either to the ear, though to the eye it is elaborate rhyme,—such as would severely task a made poet, but which this born poet seems to have thrown off without labor. The leading peculiarity of the poem is description,—of men and places; of the sea, the mountain, and the river; of Nature in her loveliness and mysteries; of cities and battle-fields consecrated by the heroism of brave and gifted men, in Greece, in Rome, in mediaeval Europe,—with swift passing glances at salient points in history, showing extensive reading and deep meditation.

As to the spirit of "Childe Harold," it is not satirical; it is more pensive than bitter, and reveals the loneliness and sorrows of an unsatisfied soul,—the unrest of a pilgrim in search for something new. It seeks to penetrate the secrets of struggling humanity, at war often with those certitudes which are the consolation of our inner life. It everywhere recognizes the soul as that which gives greatest dignity to man. It invokes love as the noblest joy of life. The poem is one of the most ideal of human productions, soaring beyond what is material and transient. It is not religious, not reverential, not Christian, like the "Divine Comedy" and the "Paradise Lost;" and yet it is lofty, aspiring, exulting in what is greatest in deed or song, destined to immortality of fame and admiration. It is a confession, indirectly, of the follies and shortcomings of the author, and of their retribution, but complains not of the Nemesis that avenges everything. It is sensitive of wrongs and injustices and misrepresentations, but does not hurl anathemas,—speaking in sorrow rather than in anger, except in regard to hypocrisies and shams and lies, when its scorn is intense and terrible.

The whole poem is brilliant and original, but does not flash like fire in a dark night. It was written with the heart's blood, and is as earnest as it is penetrating. It does not ascend to the higher mysteries forever veiled from mortal eye, nor descend to the deepest depths of hatred and despair, but confines itself to those passions which have marked gifted mortals, and those questionings in which all thoughtful minds have ever delighted. It does not make revelations like "Hamlet" or "Macbeth;" it does not explore secrets hidden forever from ordinary minds, like "Faust;" but it muses and meditates on what Fate and Time have brought to pass,—such events as have been revealed in history. It invokes the neglected but impressive monuments of antiquity to tell the tales of glory and of shame. In moral wisdom it is vastly inferior to Shakspeare, and it is not rich in those wise and striking lines which pass into the proverbs of the world; but it has the glow of a poetic soul, longing for fame, craving love, and not unmindful of immortality. Its most beautiful stanzas are full of tenderness and sadness for lost or unrequited affections; of reproachless sorrow for broken friendships, in which the soul would fain have lived but for inconsistencies and contradictions which made true and permanent love impossible. The poem paints a paradise lost, rather than a paradise regained. I wonder at its popularity, for it seems to me too deep and learned for popular appreciation, except in those stanzas where pathos or enthusiasm, expressed in matchless language, appeal to the heart and soul.

Of all modern poets, Byron is the most human and outspoken, daring to say what many would fear or blush to meditate upon. He fearlessly reveals the infirmities and audacities of a double and mysterious nature, made up of dust and deity, now grovelling in the mire, then borne aloft to the skies,—the football of the eternal powers of good and evil, enslaved and yet to be emancipated, as we may hope, in the last and final struggle, when the soul is rescued by Omnipotence.

I have alluded to the triumphs of Byron on the publication of "Childe Harold,"—but his joys were more than balanced by his sorrows. His mother died suddenly without seeing him. His dearest friend Mathews was drowned. He was hampered by creditors. He made no mark in the House of Lords, and was sick of what he called "parliamentary mummeries." His habits became more and more dissipated among the boon companions who courted his society. His reputation after a while began to wane, for people became ashamed of their enthusiasm. Some critics disparaged his poetry, and conventional circles were shocked by his morals. Three years of London life told on his constitution, and he was completely disenchanted. He sought retirement and solitude, for not even the most brilliant society satisfied him. He wearied of such a woman and admirer as Madame de Stael. He went to Holland House—that resort of all the eminent ones of the time—as seldom as he could. He buried himself with a few intimate friends, chiefly poets, among whom were Moore and Rogers. He saw and liked Sir Walter Scott, but did not push his acquaintance to intimacy. The larger part of his letters were written to Murray, the publisher, who treated him generously; but Byron gave away his literary gains to personal friends in need. He seemed to scorn copyrights for support. He would write only for fame.