element, and his "Journal" shows what large draughts of inspiration he then drank in. He coasted Angus and Kincardine shires, and no doubt heaved a sigh or two over the memories which made that country painfully dear to him; saw Dunnottar Castle rise and sink on his left; admired the view of Aberdeen from the sea; entered the dark cavern in which boils the caldron of the Bullars of Buchan; stretched across for Shetland, and spent some time in studying its primitive people, admiring its bold and savage scenery, and gleaning those picturesque particulars of character and superstition which he afterwards wrought into "The Pirate;" visited Orkney, and examined the Cathedral of St Magnus; saw, but did not climb Whiteford Hill, to the north of Kirkwall, whence, perhaps, it is that, according to Orcadians, his description in his novel of the view from it is not so accurate or successful as is his wont; felt the eternal rocking of the Pentland FrithScotland's Bay of Biscay; landed on the bold Hill of Hoy, with its three peaks rising sheer up from the wave, its Dwarfie Stone, its mysterious "Carbuncle" (see "The Pirate"), and the midnight sun, seen, it is said, in summer tide from its summit; rounded Cape Wrath; entered the marvellous cave of Smowe; admired the wild serrated mountains of Assynt; wandered up the barren sides of Loch Corriskin in Skye, the darkest and most terrific of Scotland's lochs; saw MacAllister's Cave; revisited Iona and Staffa, and felt, like Johnson, his piety grow warmer amidst the ruins of the former, and his poetic genius touched with the deepest sense of the sublime in the Fingal's Cave of the latter; went ashore at Torloisk in Mull, where lived the family of the Clephanes, in whom, and especially in the eldest daughter, afterwards Marchioness of Northampton, he took an extraordinary interest; called at the beautiful little town of Oban, and examined the ruins of Dunolly and Dunstaffnage Castles; crossed over to the Giant's Causeway, watching the Paps of Jura, listening to the roar of the whirlpool of Corrievreckan on his way, and learning, alas! at Port Rush the news of the death of the Duchess of Buccleuch, a most admirable woman, and one of his warmest friends; and, in fine, returned to Edinburgh after " having

enjoyed as much pleasure as in any six weeks of his life." This tour did not merely tend to refresh and exhilarate his spirit, but had an important influence on his genius. It brought him in contact with scenery and manners of a new and very peculiar kind, and qualified him for writing his "Lord of the Isles" and "The Pirate," which, if not the best of his works, are yet valuable for their pictures of the wildest and most romantic Scottish scenes, and because one of them at least preserves the memory of interesting customs and characters which have now nearly passed away. During the journey, he was often in a truly bardic state of inspiration, sometimes "pacing the deck rapidly, muttering to himself," and at "Loch Corriskin quite overwhelmed with his feelings, as he roamed and gazed about by himself." He had left Leith on the 29th July, and returned to Edinburgh on the 9th September.

On his return, he found that during his absence two editions. of "Waverley” had gone off, that the applause was universal, and that equally so was the curiosity about the name of the author. It was surmised by many that it was Scott; such acute judges as Jeffrey and Mat Lewis knew at a glance the fine Roman hand; but the secret had been as yet intrusted to only a few, including, besides the Ballantynes and Constable, Erskine and Morritt. "Waverley," the first, is also still with many the chief favourite among those marvellous works of genius. Less finished as a whole in composition, and less probable in story than some of the others, it is distinguished by the elastic movement, and the thrilling interest of many of its separate passages; and the characters, which are fresh, varied, and admirably contrasted, are shown to great advantage against the magnificent background of Highland scenery. Meanwhile Scott was progressing with his "Lord of the Isles," which he meant as a trial of strength in order to determine. the question whether he should or should not retire from the poetic arena. He wrote the last three cantos with "fiery rapidity," finished them in December 1814, and started for Abbotsford to "refresh the machine," which might well be worn out with the labours of the year, which included the "Life

of Swift," "Waverley," the "Lord of the Isles," two essays for the "Encyclopædia Supplement," several annotated reprints of old treatises and memoirs, and a vast mass of correspondence, besides the journal kept in his six weeks' tour. Probably no man has ever compressed so much valuable literary work into twelve months before or since. And no sooner had he reached Abbotsford to spend the Christmas vacation, than having had his attention turned, through a correspondence with Joseph Train, an ingenious supervisor in Newton Stewart, to Galloway traditions, he commenced "refreshing the machine" by the composition of "Guy Mannering," finished it in about six weeks, and it appeared on the 24th of February 1815. Byron's writing the "Corsair" in a fortnight is nothing to this, and we question if the feat has its counterpart in all the annals of improvisation. It is not merely at the size, but at the exquisite quality of a work so rapidly written, that we are called to wonder. It is, to us at least, by far the most delightful of Scott's novels. It reads like one sentence. The interest never flags for a moment, and, as Lockhart remarks, continues increasing till almost the last page. Critics have justly magnified the admirable ease, unity, and thorough fusion of materials which distinguish "Tam O'Shanter," but to find the same qualities in a work a thousand times as large is much more marvellous. "Guy Mannering" is by far the most Scott-like of Scott's tales. Its hearty homeliness, as exhibited in the Dandie Dinmont scenes; its wild flavour of romance and enthusiasm manifested in the Astrological and Gipsy compartments of the book; the passionate love for Scotch scenery, for rocks, woods, and waves; and its sympathy with the old mirthful life of the Edinburgh lawyers, are all characteristic of the composite genius and bifold temperament of the author, who united the intensest interest in simple country manners and in everyday existence, with feelings of the loftiest poetry. The reception of this novel was as rapturous as that of "Waverley," although the Quarterly Review gave it a cold and captious notice, quite unworthy of the novel, although quite worthy of a journal which was soon afterwards to abuse and insult such writers as Hazlitt, Keats, Lamb, and Shelley, which had previously damned Wordsworth

with faint praise, and ignored Coleridge entirely. The "Lord of the Isles" had turned out a disappointment. It read more like an imitation of Scott by an inferior hand, than a new work of the author. It had the rush without the force, the sound and fury but not the strength, the eloquence but not the inspiration of his former poems. In only one or two passages, such as the pictures of Staffa and of Loch Corriskin, did the old minstrel blood overboil; for although Lockhart says the contrary, the public has never put the battle-piece of Bannockburn on the same level with that of Flodden, the former seeming a faint pencil sketch, while the latter is painted in burning colours. The comparative failure of the "Lord of the Isles," coupled with the splendid success of "Guy Mannering," determined Scott to devote himself henceforth chiefly to prose. Immediately after the publication of "Guy Mannering," Scott, his lady, and their eldest daughter, sailed from Leith to London. During this visit, a long expected interview took place with Byron, then in the morning splendour of a career soon to be clouded by heavy shadows, and to go down in premature night. Scott had, with a half-humorous, half-earnest interest, eagerly anticipated a meeting with his brother bard, telling James Ballantyne that they should accost each other when they encountered, in the language of the farce of "Tom Thumb:"

"Art thou the man whom men famed Grizzle call?

Art thou the still more famed Tom Thumb the small?"

No two poets were ever more unlike in most points; their chief resemblance lying in the fact, that their unbounded popularity during life, passed, without a pause, and as certainly as the crescent becomes the full moon, into permanent fame. The one was the least, the other the most self-conscious of men: the one was constitutionally happy, although subject to temporary depressions; the other constitutionally melancholy, although often surprised into strange excesses of boyish mirth: the one was theoretically a Tory, but in sympathy with the lower orders, a Liberal: the other theoretically a Whig, but in feeling as proud an aristocrat as ever admired the Norman blood, seen, and scarcely seen, to flow in his delicate white

hands. Byron was dissipated in life; Scott, a domestic, regular, yet genial man: Byron was an infidel or sceptic more from pride and passion than from conviction; Scott, a Christian, more from constitutional tendency and respect for the old, than from much profound examination. Scott was intensely healthy in thought, temperament, and style; while Byron was little else than a strong disease embodied-a walking fever with weaknesses equal to, and which almost seemed to support and beautify, his strength. Both resembled each other in their lameness; but this, while it constituted to Byron a constant source of torment, and inspirited his insane defiances of God, was to Scott a gentle ever-living lesson, a constant hint, "Thou also art mortal." Sir Walter imagined that the link connecting him with Byron (as well as with Moore) was, that they were both men of the world, rather than authors; but this name, applied to them, did not signify the same thing, nor were they men of the world at all in the strict sense of that term. Both, indeed, were up to the manners and usages of the world; both mingled at their ease in all circles; both loved the world too well-the one the position, and the other the pleasure and the fame it gave them; but neither must be confounded with that heartless, soulless slave of form and fashion, that prostrate worshipper of success and éclat, which the ordinary "man of the world" too often becomes. And, latterly, both seceded in a great measure from the world -Byron, in disgust and disappointment; Scott, because, although he perhaps still loved it, he had failed in it, and knew that even in his case it had exacted a penalty, and fixed a certain brand on his brow.

It was, we think, John Murray's drawing-room that first witnessed the meeting of these two poets. They became instantly cordial. Their very diversity in character served to weld their attachment. Byron reposed his weary and racking self-consciousness on the wide genial temperament of Scott, as on a pillow; and Scott was deeply moved with admiration for the fervent genius, and with sympathy for the unhappy disposition of Byron, of whose natural goodness of heart he formed a better opinion than the