Quentin Durward, or of good Queen Bess in Kenilworth? The critics say that Scott did not know how to paint women, being too gallant to see their weaknesses. That charge cannot apply to his queens or his peasant lassies. They say that he did not sufficiently analyze character. In these days of vivisection, it is rather a relief to be spared the too often morbidly subjective study. A third criticism has more weight—that he is not accurate historically. Neither is Shakespeare. Probably Scott's Richard I. is as historically correct as Shakespeare's Richard III. We wish that there might have been no anachronisms and that all the personages were as true to life as Dugald Dalgetty and Jeanie Deans. In matters of delicate detail Scott was weak. His was a large nature, and his canvas has the same breadth, dealing with public rather than private affairs. With due allowance for his faults, he remains one of the cleanest and most high-minded of novelists, and the one best adapted to inspire in young readers a lively interest in the exhaustless treasures of real history. Besides the writings already mentioned, and many lesser ones, he published a careful biography of Napoleon, and the charming Tales of a Grandfather. This latter was composed for his little invalid grandson, Johnnie Lockhart, and most of it was tried upon the child as the two took long rides side by side on horseback.

Homes. Although Scott was born in Edinburgh, and is one of the special prides of that beautiful Northern Athens, he was too much of an out-of-doors man to make his chief home within city walls. His name is insepara

bly connected with Abbotsford, but his poetical career was nearly completed in two earlier homes,—the cottage at Lasswade on the Esk, some six miles from Edinburgh, and Ashiestiel in Selkirkshire, to which he removed when he was made sheriff of that county. In the former he settled almost immediately after marriage, and for this honeymoon cottage he made much of the furniture, including the dining table, with his own hands. While there, too, he bought the first wheeled carriage which ever entered Liddesdale. In the opening summer of this century, he and his pretty wife enjoyed many an excursion, among his favorite haunts, driving in the new phaeton, to the admiration of the natives.

In 1804, the family, now increased by three little ones, moved to Sir Walter's brother's house at Ashiestiel, situated on a brook which runs into the Tweed. One of his best bits of descriptive poetry is in the introduction to the first canto of Marmion:·

"November's sky is chill and drear,

November's leaf is red and sear:
Late, gazing down the steepy linn,
That hems our little garden in,
Low in its dark and narrow glen,
You scarce the rivulet might ken,
So thick the tangled greenwood grew,
So feeble trilled the streamlet through;
Now, murmuring hoarse, and frequent seen
Through bush and briar, no longer green,
An angry brook, it sweeps the glade,
Brawls over rock and wild cascade,
And, foaming brown with doubled speed,
Hurries its waters to the Tweed."

Here he began the daily programme carried on with few variations until 1825. Rising at five, he was at his desk by six, with his papers arranged methodically before him, with his books of reference, and with at least one favorite dog at his feet. By breakfast time, between nine and ten, he said he had accomplished enough "to break the neck of the day's work." A couple of hours' more writing, and by noon he was his "own man." When the weather was stormy, he was on horseback by one o'clock, and visitors could scarcely realize the forenoon of solitary labor that had preceded. Riding, hunting, and salmon-spearing were his favorite amusements, and, lame though he was, Scott was usually the most daring of the company.

His delight in adorning the grounds of Ashiestiel increased his longing for land-ownership, and in 1812 the increase of the salary for his Clerkship of Session enabled him to buy his coveted mountain farm, five miles lower down the Tweed. To Abbotsford he owed his happiest days and some of his heaviest sorrows. The first years were unclouded, however, and the removal thither was a merry one. The loud grief of the neighbors at losing their kind friends gave way to laughter at the collection of twenty-five cartloads of furniture and antiquities, dogs, pigs, horses, poultry, fishing-rods, guns, and children. A young family of turkeys screened themselves from rude gaze in the helmet of some mediæval Lochinvar, and Scott adds, in a letter to a friend, "The very cows, for aught I know, were bearing banners and muskets.' The new property was christened Abbotsford because the land formerly belonged to the Abbots of Melrose Abbey, the

exquisite ruins of which are in sight from many points of the estate. All readers of Washington Irving are familiar with his account of this handsome residence and its occupants, and no traveller in Scotland ever fails to spend some hours within its sacred enclosure. The massive structure of dark gray granite with its picturesque turrets somewhat resembles a feudal castle, and we are surprised at the air of cosy comfort within. The broad, low windows overlooking the lawn and the Tweed are as inviting as is the well-stocked armory. Through the kindness of Sir Walter's descendants, the Scott-Maxwells, we may pass through room after room filled with mementos of the great magician. The spacious and cheery library with its leather-covered seats remains just as he left it, and many a trophy of his exploits in the chase adorns the walls of the various apartments. Here was Sir Walter's abiding-place for the remainder of his days, except for some seasons on Castle Street, Edinburgh, and an occasional journey; and here he died on a bright autumn day in 1832, with the ripple of the river singing a soft requiem.

Friends.

The same traits which made the schoolboy so great a favorite with his mates in the Edinburgh high school, won for him the lasting friendships of his maturer years. Every one loved him, from Tom Purdie, his devoted body-servant, up (or down) to his Majesty George IV. Wordsworth, the poet, was a life-long friend, and many tales are told at Grasmere of Scott's visits to his brother author at Dove Cottage. It was the most brilliant period in the literary life of Scotland, and almost all of the

philosophers and reviewers of the time belonged to one or another of the literary clubs of which Scott was a leading member. In 1820 he was made President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and it is of interest to know also that, when Quentin Durward was published three years later, he had just been elected a member of "The Club" of clubs. That means, of course, the one which still flourishes in London, and which was established at the Turk's Head by Dr. Samuel Johnson and his friends, Burke, Reynolds, Goldsmith, and the others.

Both Abbotsford and the house on Castle Street were filled with guests. Among them Scott was always the same genial host and sensible, manly conversationalist. Perhaps the best known of his intimate friends is "Willie " Laidlaw. This old acquaintance had lost his property, and Scott gave him a cottage near Abbotsford. Ever after Mr. Laidlaw was his principal literary helper and trusted assistant in all things. Sir Walter's relations to his dependants, including the humblest, were as kindly, even to familiarity, as his own political principles were aristocratic. In 1820 a baronetcy was conferred upon him as a personal gift of friendship from the King.

No account of his friends is complete without reference to his cats, dogs, and ponies. Mettlesome Brown Adam could be mounted by no one except his owner. Sybil Grey and the Covenanter were later boon companions. Every one knows his dogs. Maida, to whom he raised a marble slab, was the "Bevis " of Woodstock. When Camp, the deerhound, died, Sir Walter declined a pre