II. THE NOVELISTS.

Sir Walter Scott.

Sir Walter Scott, 1771-1832, after placing himself among the foremost writers of his day as a poet, outstripped both himself and them by his unbounded success as a novelist.

Early Career. Sir Walter was a descendant of the notorious Auld Wat, the freebooter of Scottish border story. In his eighteenth month he was rendered incurably lame by a severe attack of fever. His early childhood was passed in the country, under the care of his aunt, Miss Janet Scott. He afterwards studied at the High-School, and finally at the University of Edinburgh. He never became what is termed a good classical scholar. inasmuch as he never learned more than the rudiments of Greek, and speedily forgot even those, while his knowledge of Latin was always loose and superficial. Yet his power of imagination enabled him to enjoy and appreciate more thoroughly what he read than is the case with many a first-rate scholar.

After leaving the University, Scott became apprentice to his father, who was Clerk of the Signet, and, like many a poet before and after him, he was supposed to be devoting his time to the dry forms of conveyancing and procedure. But his genius and his taste were too ima ginative for such an occupation. He learned German and Italian, and continued his readings in his favorite English authors.

Even as a very young boy, Scott was noted for his ability as a storyteller. In the High-School, and at the University, he was the idol of a select circle, who gathered around him in recess hours, to listen delighted to his improvisations. His poetical talents developed themselves later. His imagination was fertile enough, but it was long before he attained the power of rhyming and versification.

First Publications. — Scott's first appearance as an author was in a poetical ca pacity, as a translator of Bürger's Lenore, and The Wild Huntsman, in 1796. These were soon followed by a like rendering of Goethe's Götz von Berlichingen. In 1803 Border Minstrelsy was completed.

Great Poems. - Passing over one or two minor works, and his contributions to the Edinburgh Review, we come to The Lay of the Last Minstrel, in 1805, his first really great work. This made its author at once famous. In 1808, appeared Marmion, and, in 1810, The Lady of the Lake. In five years, Scott had placed himself at the very head of his generation.

Enthusiastic Popularity. —We of the present day, with our tardy and carefully discriminating appreciation, find it difficult to realize the unbounded enthusiasm with which the men and women of fifty years ago read, or rather devoured, Scott's Marmion and Lady of the Lake, and Byron's Childe Harold and Manfred. It is often

asserted, rashly, that the age of poetry has passed. Longfellow, Tennyson, Browning, not to name many others, are living witnesses to the contrary, both for themselves, and for their millions of readers. The truth is, simply, that we are more critical, more given to judgment and less to applause, than were our forefathers.

Prosperous Days.-Scott's pecuniary profits from the sale of his poems were equal to his literary laurels. He purchased Abbotsford, near Melrose Abbey, and spent immense sums upon the estate, in the effort to convert it into a magnificent baronial mansion of the old style. In 1820 he was made a baronet. Living here in princely style, Scott made Abbotsford famous throughout the literary world, a synonym for lavish hospitality and fraternal reunion. To Abbotsford betook itself year after year all that was famous in art, literature, and science. Men of every country and profession were welcomed to its hospitable walls, and peer, prelate, and aspirant after fame came and went in ceaseless succession.

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Publication of the Novels. - Meanwhile the great wizard himself, the spell that kept together this gay concourse, was not resting on his laurels. In 1814 appeared, anonymously, Waverly, the first of the magnificent series of novels which goes by that name. The authorship was immediately ascribed to Scott, but persistently repudiated. In quick succession came Guy Mannering, The Antiquary, Old Mortality, Rob Roy, The Heart of Midlothian, The Bride of Lammermoor, year by year one or more, until the secret could not longer be kept, and it was proclaimed to the world that Scotland's greatest poet was also the greatest novelist of his age.

Reverses. But the picture was soon to have its dark side. In 1826 Constable, and the Ballantynes, both large publishing firms, failed disastrously. Scott, who had been for some time a secret partner, was involved in the ruin, and was liable for their joint debts, amounting to over a hundred thousand pounds. With heroic courage he gave up his estate at Abbotsford in part-payment, and devoted the remainder of his life to writing himself, so to speak, out of debt. He succeeded, but the effort cost him his life. Not suffering himself to be interrupted even by the death of his beloved wife, in 1826, or by repeated attacks of ill health, he produced volume after volume — the conclusion of the Waverly series, from Woodstock on, the History of Napoleon, and The Tales of a Grandfather-until he sank into the grave, an overworn but not a broken-hearted man. A few months before his death, Scott travelled in Italy, vainly seeking to recover his strength and spirits. His funeral was unostentatious, but the procession was over a mile long, and all Scotland and England sent its mourners.

No purely literary character was ever the recipient of greater spontaneous honor, in life and in death, than Sir Walter Scott. In the year 1871, the centennial anniversary of his birth was celebrated with an outburst of enthusiasm which carried the present generation back to the days of Marmion and Waverly.

Scott's descendants have died out, with the exception of a single grand-daughter, Mary Morrice Hope. Thus his pet ambition-that of becoming the head of a long and illustrious line-has been foiled by Providence. His true offspring are not of his flesh and blood, but the creatures of his brain. Scott's wife was a Frenchwoman, the daughter of Jean Charpentier, an émigré of Lyons. His eldest daughter Sophia was married to Lockhart, the author of the well-known Memoirs of Sir Walter Scott. This biography is, scarcely excepting Boswell's Life of Johnson, the most interesting in the language.

Rank as an Author. În estimating Scott's genius, we should be careful to disinguish between the poet and the novelist. As a poet, Scott is only in the second tlass, and not even first in that class. He is far surpassed in imagination by Tennyson, Browning, and Longfellow; in power and breadth of conception, by Byron. His

Marmion and Lady of the Lake are not great creations. Yet their diction is so spirited, their fundamental conceptions are so pure and cheerful, they suggest such a glamour of forest and mountain, lake and heather, that they will ever remain among the most delightful gems of the great English treasure-house. On the other hand, as a novelist, and a delineator of character, he is unsurpassed. It is the fashion, among writers of a certain class, to speak of Scott as superseded by Thackeray and Dickens. In a measure this is true; every writer, no matter how great, is crowded out more or less by his successors. Not even Shakespeare, Dante, and Goethe have been exceptions to the rule. But it may well be pondered, whether, years from now, when the final muster-roll of English novelists is called, Scott's name will not head the list—whether Meg Merrilies, Jeannie Deans, Caleb Balderstone, Domine Sampson, Rebecca of York, Dirck Hatterick, Dandie Dinmont, Flora Mac Ivor, Rob Roy, Dugald Dalgetty, will not shine, like the older windows of the cathedral at Cologne in the evening twilight, clear and unfaded, while their younger and ambitious rivals, even Becky Sharpe, Major Pendennis, Ethel Newcome, Sam Weller, Mrs. Gamp, and Mr. Micawber, will appear by their side slightly dimmed and tarnished.

Scott's defects are palpable. He is diffuse, and not over-careful in the structure of his sentences. The plot is often unskilfully woven. The would-be heroes and heroines are not always interesting. But the subordinate characters display a wealth of humor, wit, fancy, shrewdness, and sentiment that make them unique. The tone of his works is healthy and life-giving throughout. Scott is nowhere so great as when he remains on his native heath. His Scottish novels are pre-eminently his best. His Tory prejudices and blindness of vision have passed away with the generation to which they were native, and there remain only his broad love of humanity, his cheery smile and quaint humor. To Scott belongs the honor of lifting the English novel from the dreary depths of the rakedom and sentimentality of the eighteenth century, and placing it upon the lasting foundations of good breeding, good morals, and good sense, from which no one henceforth can départ and be safe.

Maria Edgeworth.

Maria Edgeworth, 1767-1849, holds a high rank as a writer of novels and tales, and of works on education.

Miss Edgeworth was the daughter of Richard Lovell Edgeworth. She was born in England, but resided nearly all her life in Ireland. Mr. Edgeworth was himself a man of letters, and an author of celebrity, particularly in works on education. Several of Maria's works were written in conjunction with her father.

Among the conjoint works of father and daughter were: A Treatise on Practical Education; Early Lessons; Essay on Irish Bulls. Miss Edgeworth also wrote The Parent's Assistant, as a Sequel to Early Lessons, and completed the Memoirs of her father, begun by himself.

Her other works are chiefly Novels and Tales. They are descriptive of domestic and social life, and are so shaped and constructed as to teach the doctrines of morals and education with as much clearness as if they had been treatises on those subjects, and with a good deal more efficiency than most treatises. For their truthfulness and vividness of description, and their skill in the delineation of character, they have received the highest encomiums from all classes of critics, and they have been perused 34* 2 A

with unabated delight by several generations of readers, both in England and America. Young and old alike delight in Miss Edgeworth's Tales.

The best English edition of the Novels and Tales is in 18 vols. The following are the titles of some of the principal: Castle Rackrent; Belinda; Patronage; Ormond; Helen: Out of Debt, out of Danger; The Modern Griselda; The Good French Governess; Murad the Unlucky, etc.

Walter Scott was a great admirer of Miss Edgeworth's novels. The visit which she paid to him at Abbotsford is described by Lockhart as a scene of extraordinary interest. "Never did I see a brighter day at Abbotsford than that on which Miss Edgeworth first arrived there."- Lockhart. "If I could but hit Miss Edgeworth's wonderful power of vivifying all her persons, and making them live as beings in your mind, I should not be afraid."- Walter Scott. "Some one has described the novels of Miss Edgeworth as a sort of essence of common sense, and the definition is not inappropriate." -Walter Scott.

"The writings of Miss Edgeworth exhibit so singular an union of sober sense and inexhaustible invention,- so minute a knowledge of all that distinguishes manners, or touches on happiness in every condition of human fortune, and so just an estimate both of the real sources of enjoyment and of the illusions by which they are often obstructed, that it cannot be thought wonderful that we should separate her from the ordinary manufacturer of novels, and speak of her tales as works of more serious importance than most of the true history and solemn philosophy that come daily under our inspection."-Jeffrey, in Ed. Rev.

"As a writer of tales and novels, she has a very marked peculiarity. It is that of venturing to dispense common sense to her readers, and to bring them within her precincts of real life and natural feeling."-London Quarterly Rev.

RICHARD LOVELL EDGEWORTH, 1744-1817, was distinguished as a writer of some important and popular works on education, but still more as the father of Maria Edgeworth.

He was born in Bath, England, but succeeded in 1782 to a family estate in Ireland, and continued to reside there afterwards. He was married four times. Maria was a daughter by the first marriage. He wrote in conjunction with his daughter: Practical Education; Easy Lessons; Essay on Irish Bulls. His separate works are: Poetry Explained for the Use of Young People; Essays on Professional Education; Essay on the Construction of Roads and Carriages; On the Telegraph; Memoirs of himself (completed by his daughter). He contributed papers on mechanical subjects to the Philosophical Transactions. He was much distinguished for mechanical ingenuity.

Miss Austen.

JANE AUSTEN, 1775-1817, was the author of several novels of a high order of merit.

Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Mansfield Park, and Emma, were pub lished during her lifetime, but anonymously. Persuasion, and Northanger Abbey appeared after her death. Critics of the highest order, such as Whately in the London Quarterly, speak of Miss Austen's novels in terms of the strongest commendation. Sir Walter Scott says, her portraits of society are far superior to anything of a like nature produced by writers of the other sex. "I have read again, and for the third

time, Miss Austen's very finely written novel of Pride and Prejudice. That young lady had a talent for describing the involvements, feelings, and characters of ordinary life, which is to me the most wonderful I have ever met with. The big bow-wow I can do myself like any one going; but the exquisite touch, which renders commonplace things and characters interesting from the truth of the description and the sentiment, is denied to me. What a pity so gifted a creature died so early!"

Lady Blessington.

MARGARET, COUNTESS OF BLESSINGTON, 1787-1849, was celebrated in her day for her literary abilities and her personal charms, and her attractions in both respects were greatly increased by her high social position.

Lady Blessington was the daughter of an Irish gentleman, Edmund Power. She was married, first, at the age of fifteen, to Captain Farmer of the British army, and afterwards, at the age of thirty-one, to the Earl of Blessington. The Earl and Countess resided chiefly on the continent. On his death, Lady Blessington, then at the age of forty-two, established herself in London, where for twenty years, from 1829 to 1849, her house was the centre both of fashion and of letters, for a large and brilliant circle. She was celebrated equally for her beauty and her wit; and she wrote with the same ease and grace with which she talked. Lord Byron was a great admirer of her, and one of her most charming works is that in which she gives an account of her conversations with him. Her publications are numerous.

Besides writing a good deal for the magazines, and for the annuals, which were then in high repute, Lady Blessington wrote many separate volumes, some of which were very popular. The following are the chief: Conversations with Lord Byron; The Magic-Lantern; Tour in the Netherlands; The Victims of Society; The Repealers; The Two Friends; The Governess; Confessions of an Elderly Gentleman; Confessions of an Elderly Lady; The Idler in Italy; The Idler in France; The Belles of a Season; Memoirs of a Femme de Chambre; and a good many others. The novels of Lady Blessington "are peculiarly Romans de Societé the characters that move and breathe throughout them are the actual persons of the great world; and the reflections with which they abound belong to the philosophy of one who has well examined the existing manners. Her portraiture of familiar scenes and of every-day incidents are matchless for truth and grace.” — Edinburgh Review.

MISS MARGARET A. POWER, niece of Lady Blessington, wrote a Memoir of her aunt, and several novels: Evelyn Forrester, The Foresters, Nelly Carew, Sweethearts and Wives, etc., besides Virginia's Hand, a poem.

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MISS MARE FERRIER, 1782-1855, a contemporary and friend of Sir Walter Scott, wrote three novels, all highly commended: The Marriage; The Inheritance; Destiny, or The Chief's Daughter. Miss Ferrier's novels were great favorites with Scott, and she herself was a frequent guest at Abbotsford. "Edgeworth, Ferrier, Austen, have all given portraits of real society far superior to anything man - vain man- has produced of the like nature."-Sir Walter Scott. "To a warm heart, a lively fancy, and great powers of discrimination, Miss Ferrier has added a variety of knowledge, and a graphic art of describing all she sees and all she feels, which give her a distinguished place among the novelists of the day."- Allan Cunningham.