faculty of saying the thing that belongs to the character at the moment. Not only is the proper sentiment caught, but the turn of phrase, the manner, almost the modulation of the voice. And not only is this true of the limited characters who act always in the same way; in the sustained scenes between the more developed persons, where the dialogue is more highly charged with meaning, Miss Austen shows dramatic power of the highest order.

Miss Austen's stories are the most perfect examples of the eighteenth-century novel of manners, though by virtue of their technical skill they seem to belong almost to our own day. In striking contrast to the petty, provincial world. which she mastered so thoroughly, is the great field of history and romance brought before us in the novels of her contemporary, Sir Walter Scott.

III. SIR WALTER SCOTT (1771-1832)

Scott's Early Life. Scott was born in Edinburgh, August 15, 1771, of a family famous in the border wars, and in the long struggle of the Stuarts for the throne. His father, however, had forsaken the venturesome life of his ancestors and had become an attorney. He sought to bring up his son to the same profession, and did give to the latter's character that strong bent toward system and industry which he never lost. The young Walter, in spite of a slight lameness, the result of an illness in childhood, was distinguished for activity in bodily sports; and as a young man he found satisfaction for his roving disposition in journeys through the wilder parts of Scotland-the Cheviots and the Highlands. On these expeditions he learned to know types of Scotch character, as well as the legends and traditions of Scotch history of which he afterward made such brilliant use. As a youth Scott was much in the company of persons who stimulated and fed his interest in the past. The century before his birth had been one full of excitement. In Scotland the Puritans, under the name Covenanters, had fought their last battles against the restored Stuarts; and Scotland had been the scene of the romantic attempts

of the princes of that exiled house to regain their throne in 1715 and 1745. To these things Scott was brought near by the companionship of his grandfather-whose father had been. a famous adherent of the Stuarts, known as "Beardie" because of his refusal to cut his beard until that family should be restored-and by the conversation of his mother. Of her he wrote much later: "If I have been able to do anything in the way of painting the past times it is very much from the studies with which she presented me."

Scott at Abbotsford.-Scott was married in 1797 to the daughter of one of the French exiles from the Revolution. He lived first in a cottage at Lasswade, a few miles from Edinburgh. Then in 1804 he moved to Ashestiel, in Selkirkshire, of which county he had been made sheriff. The success of his poems, however, enabled him in 1812 to purchase the estate of Abbotsford, with which his name is forever connected. Scott at Abbotsford is charmingly described for us by Washington Irving, who visited him in 1817. "He was tall and of a large and powerful frame. His dress was simple, and almost rustic. An old green shooting coat with a dog-whistle at the button-hole, brown linen pantaloons, stout shoes that tied at the ankles, and a white hat that had scen service. He came limping up the gravelwalk, aiding himself by a stout walking-staff, but moving rapidly and with vigor. By his side jogged along a large, iron-gray stag-hound of most grave demeanor, who took no part in the clamor of the canine rabble, but seemed to consider himself bound for the dignity of the house to give me a courteous reception." An account of the life at Abbotsford in later years, when Scott had replaced his cottage by a baronial castle, and had developed his establishment to feudal magnificence, is given by Lockhart in his Life of Scott. It was Scott's custom to write conscientiously during the early morning, but, his task finished, he delighted to put himself at the head of a cavalcade of guests and retainers for a hunting expedition, or a ride to the Yarrow, or to Dryburgh Abbey.

To support this train of life, Scott relied on the profits of a secret partnership which he had formed with two brothers

named Ballantyne, in a printing and publishing business. The firm became considerably embarrassed about the time of the purchase of Abbotsford, and just then, too, Scott's popularity as a poet was on the wane. He retrieved his doubtful fortunes, however, when in 1814 he took up and finished a tale begun some nine years earlier, and published it under the title Waverley. This was the first of the great series of romances which fascinated the whole reading world. The name of Scott was not at first connected with them, but their authorship soon became an open secret. With the control of the Waverley novels in their hands the Ballantynes prospered, but in the end the mismanagement of the active partners and Scott's own etravaxgance resulted in the failure of the firm for £117,000, all of which Scott assumed. The last years of his life were a splendid struggle to pay this debt. In fact he did earn more than half of the needed sum, and the rest was discharged by the sale of his earlier copyrights. But the effort broke him physically and mentally, and hastened his death, which came in 1832. Carlyle, who saw him in these last years on the Edinburgh streets, made a sketch of him which must stand beside Irving's. 'Alas, his fine Scotch face with its shaggy honesty, sagacity, and goodness was all worn with care, the joy all fled from it;-ploughed deep with labor and sorrow. We shall never forget it; we shall never see it again. Adieu, Sir Walter, pride of all Scotchmen, take our proud and sad farewell."

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Scott's Character.-Scott's life was a blending of the old and the new. He tried to be both a feudal lord and a modern business man, and both attempts are curiously connected with his literary career. He wrote partly for the pleasure of creating in fiction the feudal ideal that he sought to realize at Abbotsford, partly for the money with which to sustain that experiment. In this almost mercantile aspect of his literary life there is something essentially unromantic, and indeed in many traits of character Scott has little likeness to his romantic contemporaries. We find in him nothing of the spiritual experience, nothing of the revolt against the conventions of the political and social world, that mark Coleridge and Shelley. But Scott had, on the other hand, a love ·

of Scotland, of her scenery, of her history, of her people, which may be called the romantic passion of his life.

The Scotch Novels. It is worthy of note that in his first novel Scott recognized his chief strength to be in his knowledge of his native land and its people. After some hesitation at the outset, he starts his hero for Scotland and plunges him into a society composed of quaint Scotch types,-Baron Bradwardine, the type of old-fashioned feudal prejudice, Laird Balmawhapple, Baillie MacWheeble, with David Gellatley and his mother, old Janet, for dependents. Waverley becomes involved in the attempt of the Young Pretender to win the throne in 1745, and Scott takes the opportunity to reinforce his story by the introduction of historical characters and events,-a device of which he thus early showed his mastery.

In the novels which immediately followed Waverley, Scott dealt with the material which he had most successfully at command-Scotch life in the eighteenth century, which he knew at first-hand or from recent tradition. These books are Guy Mannering (1815) and The Antiquary (1816), both of which may be called novels of private life. In later works he went into the more remote past, and relied more upon historical sources. In Old Mortality (1816) he treated the revolt of the Covenanters in the reign of Charles II., and in The Abbot (1820) and The Monastery (1820) the tragic events surrounding the life of Mary Queen of Scots. In Redgauntlet (1824) he returned to the eighteenth century, and to the last plots of the Jacobites to bring the Pretender to the throne.

Scotch Characters. In this series of novels we find some of Scott's best characters, drawn from the humble life of both Highlands and Lowlands. In such characters Scott worked with his eye upon the object; many of them have been recognized as life-like portraits of persons whom he met in his wanderings, or of dependents like Tom Purdie, his huntsman. These local types show us the humor and the pathos of humanity warped by circumstances into a hundred fantastic forms, but capable of sometimes throwing itself into an attitude of noble disinterestedness, of dignified