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THE LAST DAYS OF SCOTT.

which for the first time a picturesque colouring was given to history intended for the perusal of the young, were among the works of his declining years. Count Robert of Paris and Castle Dangerous were the last of his published novels. What he called The Opus Magnum, a reprint of his novels with explanatory introductions and notes historical and antiquarian, may also be named as one of the chief tasks in the closing life of the novelist.

A.D.

At last, in the midst of his toil, there came a day-February 15th, 1830-when he fell speechless in his drawing-room under a stroke of paralysis. From that time he never was the same man, and "a cloudiness" in his words and arrangement shows that the shock had told upon the mind. Fits of apoplexy and paralysis occurred at intervals during that and the following year; and, as a last hope, the worn-out workman sailed 1831 in the autumn of 1831 for Malta and Italy. He lived at Naples and at Rome for about six months; and in the former city he spent many of his morning hours in the composition of two novels, The Siege of Malta, and Bizarro, which were never finished, and which last feeble efforts of a mind shattered by disease his friends wisely did not judge it right to publish. On his way home down the Rhine the relentless maladystruck him a mortal blow. His earnest wish was to die at Abbotsford, the loved place that had cost him so dear; and there he soon found himself with his grandchildren and his dogs playing round the chair he could not leave.

Perhaps the saddest scene of all this sad time-sadder even than the kneeling family round the dying bed-was the last effort of the author to return to his old occupation. On the 17th of July, awaking from sleep, he desired his writing materials to be prepared. When the chair, in which he lay propped up with pillows, was moved into his study and placed before the desk, his daughter put a pen into his hand; but, alas! there was no power in the fingers to close on the familiar thing. It dropped upon the paper, and the helpless old man sank back to weep in silence.

Little more than two months later, on the 21st of September

LIST OF SCOTT'S CHIEF WORKS.

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1832, this great man died, as he had wished to die, at Abbotsford, with all his children round his bed; and on the fifth day after death his body was laid beside the dust of his wife in Dryburgh Abbey, whose grey walls he had seen among the yews from his grassy seat on the crags of Sandy-Knowe.

Some of Scott's chief works have been named in sketching his life. We subjoin here, for more accurate reference, a chronological list of the most important. Any one who has glanced over the catalogue of his writings appended to his Life by Lockhart, will know how useless it would be to give a complete list in a book like this:

410

CHARACTER OF SCOTT'S WORKS.

Though facile princeps in his own peculiar realm of poetry, Scott's brilliant renown rests chiefly on his novels. The same love of chivalrous adventure and medieval romance colours his best works in both branches of literature. The author of "Marmion" and "The Lady of the Lake was just the man to produce, in maturer age and with finer literary skill, the changeful, pathetic brilliance of "Waverley," and the courtly splendour of "Kenilworth." Of his poems, "The Lady of the Lake" is perhaps the best. Nothing could surpass, for vivid force, the meeting and the duel between the disguised king and the rebel chieftain, Roderick Dhu; or that rapid flight of the Fiery Cross over mountain and moor, by which the clansmen are summoned to the tryst. The opening of Michael Scott's grave, in the "Lay of the Last Minstrel," and the battle of Flodden, at the close of "Marmion," are pictures that none but true genius could paint. The fine songs, scattered through the works of Scott, afford further evidence of his great poetic powers. Who does not know and delight in Young Lochinvar and Bonnie Dundee?

Scott was eminently a painter in words. The picturesque was his forte. Witness the magnificent descriptions of natural scenery -sunsets, stormy sea, deep woodland glades-with which many of his chapters open. But his portraitures surpass his landscapes. For variety and true painting of character he was undoubtedly the Shakspere of our English prose. What a crowd of names, "familiar as household words," come rushing on the mind, as we think of the gallery of portraits his magical pencil has left for our endless delight and study! There is scarcely a class of old Scottish life without its type in this collection. Dominie Sampson-Nicol Jarvie Jeanie Deans-Edie Ochiltree-Jonathan Oldbuck-Meg Dods-Dandie Dinmont-Dugald Dalgetty -their descendants (typical, of course) may still be found by the banks of Forth and Clyde and Tweed.

Of the twenty-nine tales which form the Waverley Novels, the

HISTORICAL GROUND-WORK OF SCOTT'S NOVELS.

A

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greater part have an historical ground-work. Scottish history and Scottish soil were invested by the genius of Scott with a new lustre. Tourists came from all parts of the world to see the places where Fitz-James, Rob Roy, and Jeanie Deans had played their fancied parts. Nor was the Wizard himself forgotten amid the romance of the magical scenes his genius had conjured up. Abbotsford is still one of the sights of Scotland. But Scott was not the man to work a vein until it began to yield a base, inferior ore. When he felt that he had fallen below the level of his earlier poetical works, he turned to prose; and when "Waverley," "The Antiquary," "Old Mortality," "Rob Roy," "The Heart of MidLothian," and so forth, had gone deep into the pictured life of Scottish history and society, he felt that it was time to break new ground. So, turning to English annals, he reproduced in "Ivanhoe" the brilliant, chivalrous days of the Lion-hearted King. And then followed several novels founded upon the most striking eras of English history. Of these, "Kenilworth," a picture of Elizabeth and her court- "The Fortunes of Nigel," dealing with London life in the reign of James the First-"Peveril of the Peak," a story of the Restoration era-and "Woodstock," a tale of Cromwell's time -may be named as the chief specimens. "The Talisman" carries us to the East during the third Crusade, and "Quentin Durward" introduces us to the French court during the reign of that strange mixture of cruelty, cunning, and superstition, King Louis XI. So the theme was varied, and thus the interest was maintained. Well might Byron say of this wonderful master of fiction, "He is a library in himself."

The chief work of actual history by Scott is his "Life of Napoleon." It is not a satisfactory performance. Written too near the time of which it treats to be quite impartial, it also bears in many places the marks of haste and imperfect execution. The training through which Scott had been going for the previous ten years, was not of a kind to fit him for working with perfect patience upon a theme so vast and difficult. The laborious research and the careful balancing of conflicting evidence, which such a work required, were not the things to which Scott had been accustomed

412

SPECIMEN OF SCOTT'S PROSE.

in his literary toils. The complete change of literary habits involved in this work has been noticed during the progress of our sketch.

KNIGHTHOOD IN THE LISTS.

(FROM "IVANHOE.")

At length, as the Saracenic music of the challengers concluded one of those long and high flourishes with which they had broken the silence of the lists, it was answered by a solitary trumpet, which breathed a note of defiance from the northern extremity. All eyes were turned to see the new champion whom these sounds announced; and no sooner were the barriers opened than he paced into the lists. As far as could be judged of a man sheathed in armour, the new adventurer did not greatly exceed the middle size, and seemed to be rather slerder than strongly made. His suit of armour was formed of steel, richly inlaid with gold; and the device on his shield was a young oak-tree pulled up by the roots, with the Spanish word Desdichado, signifying Disinherited. He was mounted on a gallant black horse; and as he passed through the lists he gracefully saluted the Prince and the ladies by lowering his lance. The dexterity with which he managed his steed, and something of youthful grace which he displayed in his manner, won him the favour of the multitude, which some of the lower classes expressed by calling out, "Touch Ralph de Vipont's shield!touch the Hospitaller's shield; he has the least sure seat; he is your cheapest bargain!"

The champion, moving onward amid these well-meant hints, ascended the platform by the sloping alley which led to it from the lists, and, to the astonishment of all present, riding straight up to the central pavilion, struck with the sharp end of his spear the shield of Brian de Bois-Guilbert until it rang again. All stood astonished at his presumption, but none more than the redoubted knight, whom he had thus defied to mortal combat, and who, little expecting so rude a challenge, was standing carelessly at the door of the pavilion.

When the two champions stood opposed to each other at the two extremities of the lists, the public expectation was strained to the highest pitch. Few augured the possibility that the encounter could terminate well for the Disinherited Knight; yet his courage and gallantry secured the general good wishes of the spectators.

The trumpets had no sooner given the signal than the champions vanished from their posts with the speed of lightning, and closed in the centre of the lists with the shock of a thunderbolt. The lances burst into shivers up to the very grasp; and it seemed at the moment that both knights had fallen, for the shock had made each horse recoil backwards upon its haunches. The address of the riders recovered their steeds by use of the bridle and spur; and having glared on each other for an instant with eyes which seemed to flash fire through the bars of their visors, each made a demivolt, and, retiring to the extremity of the lists, received a fresh lance from the attendants.