415 from which these words are taken was written on the 11th of December, 1827; on the following day he wrote:- 'Reconsidered the probable downfall of my literary reputation. I am so constitutionally indifferent to the censure or praise of the world, that never having abandoned myself to the feelings of selfconceit which my great success was calculated to inspire, I can look with the most unshaken firmness upon the event as far as my own feelings are concerned. If there be any great advantage in literary reputation, I have had it, and I certainly do not care for losing it. They cannot say but what I had the crown.' To these remarks we shall append one from Carlyle which does Carlyle credit and Sir Walter justice: 'Surely since Shakspeare's time there has been no great speaker so unconscious of an aim in speaking as Walter Scott.' James Ballantyne, in some unpublished extracts from his 'Reminiscences,' now printed by Mr. Douglas, throws fresh light on this side of Sir Walter's character, saying of him: 'He laboured under the strangest delusion as to the merits of his own works. On this score he was not only inaccessible to compliments, but even insensible to the truth; in fact, at all times, he hated to talk of any of his productions; as, for instance, he greatly preferred Mrs. Shelley's "Frankenstein" to any of his own romances. When I ventured, as I sometimes did, to press him on the score of the reputation he had gained, he merely asked, as if determined to be done with the discussion, "Why, what is the value of a reputation which probably will not last above one or two generations? However absurd this under-estimate of himself may appear, there was no false modesty in it. He wrote because he had something to say; without dreaming of fame he became immortal. In corroboration of what Ballantyne noted, we shall cite a few words which he wrote in his Journal after quoting some lines from Burns: Long life to thy fame, and peace to thy soul, Rob Burns! When None of Sir Walter's countrymen and contemporaries is a man of greater originality than Carlyle, and none has made a greater and, perhaps, more lasting mark in our literature. Among all his writings nothing is less admirable or creditable to him than his Essay on Scott. According to him, Sir Walter 'with all his health, was infected, sick of the fearfullest malady, that of ambition.' Moreover, 'his life was worldly; his ambitions were worldly. There is nothing spiritual in him; all is economical, material, of the earth earthy. Vol. 171.-No. 342. 2 E A love A love of picturesque, of beautiful, vigorous, and graceful things; a genuine love, yet not more genuine than has dwelt in hundreds of men named minor poets; this is the highest quality to be discerned in him.' The foregoing passage appeared a few years after Sir Walter's death. A few years before it, Carlyle wrote to him in a different strain. Mr. Douglas has recovered and printed Carlyle's letter. It was addressed to Sir Walter in London while he was on a visit there in April 1828, and it arrived at a time when he wrote in his Journal, 'In this phantasmagorial place the objects of the day come and depart like shadows.' It is probable that, being fully occupied, Sir Walter put the letter aside, and forgot about it, as there is no mention of it in his Journal or correspondence. He was punctilious in answering all the letters addressed to him. Possibly the feeling of Carlyle towards Sir Walter was affected by a disregard of his communication which is dated April 13th, 1828. After informing Scott that 'Goethe has sent two medals which he is to deliver into his own hand,' he gives an extract from Goethe's letter which related to the 'Life of Bonaparte,' saying, 'it is seldom such a writer obtains such a critic, and Carlyle adds, Being in this curious fashion appointed, as it were, ambassador between two kings of poetry, I would willingly discharge my mission with the solemnity that becomes such a business; and naturally it must flatter my vanity and love of the marvellous to think that by means of a foreigner whom I have never seen, I might soon have access to my native Sovereign, whom I have so often seen in public, and so often wished that I had claim to see and know in private, and near at hand. . . . Meanwhile, I abide your further orders in this matter; and so with all the regard which belongs to one to whom I, in common with other millions, owe so much, I have the honour to be, Sir, most respectfully, your servant, T. C.' Posthumous disclosures are often damaging, and few men can throw open the windows of their soul and retain the esteem of mankind. Sir Walter Scott is an exception. Nothing of moment that passed through his mind while keeping his Journal has been kept back; it is a piece of vivid and lifelike self-portraiture, and now that the Journal is published almost exactly as it was written, every intellectual reader will rise from its perusal with his admiration for the writer heightened, with his sympathy in his sorrows deepened, and with his conviction confirmed that he was a most estimable as well as a very great man. His indomitable courage was as remarkable as the delicacy of his sentiments. When broken in health and staggering under the burden of his liabilities, he never flinched flinched from what he held to be his duty, neither did he complain of the terrible burden which he had to bear. He had made a mistake, and he was prepared to pay the penalty, even if his life was the forfeit. In such noble words as the following he expressed his feelings and his determination : Whether it is in human possibility that fa am clear off these obligations or not is very doubtful. But I would rather have it written on my monument that I died at the desk, than live under the recollection of having neglected it.' He struggled on, despite failing health, and the seriousness of his state was clearer to his friends than himself. The following passage, written in December 1830, will be read with mournful interest : 'Last spring, Miss Young, the daughter of Dr. Young, had occasion to call on me on some business, in which I had hopes of serving her. As I endeavoured to explain to her what I had to say, I had the horror to find I could not make myself understood. I stammered, stuttered, said one word in place of another-did all but speak; Miss Young went away frightened enough, poor thing, and Anne and Violet Lockhart were much alarmed. I was bled with cupping-glasses, took medicine, and lived on panuda; but in two or three days I was well again. The physicians thought, or said at least, that the evil was from the stomach. It is very certain that I have seemed to speak with an impediment, and I was, or it might be fancied myself, troubled with a mispronouncing and hesitation. I felt this particularly at the election and sometimes in society. This went on till last November, when Lord came out to make me a visit. I had for a long time taken only one tumbler of whisky and water without the slightest reinforcement. This night I took a very little drop, not so much as a bumper glass, of whisky altogether. It made no difference on my head that Í could discover, but when I went to the dressing-room I sank stupefied on the floor. I lay a minute or two-was not found, luckily, gathered myself up and got to my bed. I was alarmed at this second warning, consulted Abercrombie and Ross, and got a few restrictive orders as to diet. I am forced to attend to them; for, as Mrs. Cole says, "Lack-a-day! a thimbleful oversets me.' add to these feelings I have the constant increase of my lameness; the thigh-joint, knee-joint, and ankle-joint. I walk with great pain in the whole limb, and am at every minute, during an hour's walk, reminded of my mortality. I should not care for all this, if I was sure of dying handsomely.' To As a last resort, he resolved to visit Italy in the hope of being benefited in health, and on the 23rd of September, 1831, he left Abbotsford for London. A week before starting he wrote to the Duke of Buccleuch, saying: 'I am going to try whether 2 E 2 the the air of Naples will make an old fellow of sixty young again." Some time previously he had entered in his Journal with reference to his friend Colin Mackenzie what was equally. applicable to himself now: Alas! long-seated complaints defy Italian climate.' The Journal contains many interesting details of his voyage to Italy and sojourn there; indeed, the entries are often so lively and cheerful in tone, that it is hard to realize when reading them how greatly Sir Walter's health was impaired and how much his mind was enfeebled. He appeared to consider it a duty to make entries in the Journal so long as he could hold a pen; and he did so till the month of April 1832, being five months before he breathed his last at Abbotsford. Mr. Douglas gives a facsimile in the Preface of the following words, which were the last that Sir Walter penned :- 'We entered Rome by a gate surmounted by one of the Old Pontiffs, but which I forgot, and so paraded the streets by moonlight to discover if possible some appearance of the learned Sir William Gell or the pretty Mistress Astly. At length we found an old servant who guided us to the lodgings taken by Sir William Gell, where all was comfortable, a good fire included, which our fatigue and the chilliness of the night required. We dispersed as soon as we had taken some food and wine and water. 'We slept reasonably but on the next morning,' It is upwards of half a century since Carlyle wrote that Lockhart's 'Life of Scott' summons the world's attention round him, probably for the last time it will ever be summoned.' A further summons is unnecessary; his works and the story of his life have secured for him universal homage throughout all ages. His position is alike firm and lofty; it can neither be forfeited nor raised, any more than a dead man or woman who is beatified can cease to be a Saint or attain another dignity. Sir Walter Scott resembles the best of those knights in the olden days of chivalry that excited his imagination and inspired his pen. Like them, he lived without fear and died without reproach, his honour being dearer to him than his life-blood. We realize this better after perusing the vivid and instructive pages of his Journal. While reading it he seems to stand before us again as he was in the flesh, and we almost forget that his hallowed dust has long since mingled with that of his ancestors in Dryburgh Abbey. Although many of the details are melancholy, yet the interest of the whole is entrancing, and the Journal is a most precious relic of Sir Walter Scott. ART. ART. V.-1. The Scientific Education of Dogs for the Gun. By H. H. London, 1890. 2. Dog Breaking. The most expeditious, certain, and easy Method. By General W. N. Hutchinson. Ninth edition. London, 1890. 3. History and Description of the Collie, or Sheep-dog, in the British Varieties. By Rawdon Lee, Kennel Editor of 'The Field.' WE London. E must preface the remarks we have to make on the subject of this article by informing our readers at once that the author of the first of the three works above-mentioned is an enthusiast; an enthusiast after our own heart, no doubt, but one, nevertheless, whose ideas will meet with small sympathy from the rising generation of sportsmen, to many of whom they will probably seem as much out of date as Colonel Newcome's celebrated blue coat appeared to the rising race of dandies. They will pronounce the book an anachronism. Pointers and setters, they will say, are no longer used for partridge-shooting, and what is the use of all this long and elaborate code of rules for breaking them, demanding, as the author himself allows, not only a combination of patience, per-. severance, and good temper, which is far from common, but also something akin even to supernatural powers in the shape of animal magnetism to control the dogs' will? The answer is, that H. H. is an enthusiast on the subject of dogs, and that the trouble which seems superfluous to ordinary men, does not seem so to him: and if we are to accept his book as evidence that he can still find sporting quarters where dogs can be used as of old with decided advantage to the gun, we think he is to be congratulated on his enthusiasm. Nor ought we to omit to call the attention of our readers to the well-known and excellent work of General Hutchinson, which has now reached its ninth edition. There are, of course, three different ways of shooting partridges: there is the old-fashioned way; there is the system of walking them up in line, with retrievers following at heel; and lastly, there is the system of driving. The advantages of the second of these three plans we have never been able to understand. If birds will lie to a man they will lie to a dog: and the only reason in its favour, we suppose, is, that a larger party can go out together when birds are simply kicked up, than when dogs have to be manœuvred as well. Between the comparative attractions of driving and shooting over dogs the controversy still rages; but the former system is supported on two very different grounds and by two very different kinds of sportsmen, those |