hid their little light under a bushel - Campbell's "Hohenlinden," Mrs. Hemans' "Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers,' Hunt's "Abou ben Adhem," Hood's "The Song of the Shirt," and many others- are now as widely known as are the best works of Wordsworth or Byron.

We can name only a few poets of the age, leaving the reader to form acquaintance with their songs in an anthology. Especially worthy of remembrance are: Thomas Campbell,

who greatly influenced the American poets Halleck and Drake; Thomas Moore, whose Irish Melodies have an attractive singing quality; James Hogg (The Ettrick Shepherd); John Keble, author of The Christian Year; Thomas Hood; Felicia Hemans; and Leigh Hunt, whose encouragement of Keats is as memorable as his "Abou ben Adhem" or "The Glove and the Lions." There are other poets of equal rank with those we have ventured to name, and their melodious quality is such that a modern critic has spoken of them, in terms commonly applied to the Elizabethans, as "a nest of singing birds"; which would be an excellent figure if we could forget the fact that birds in a nest never sing. Their work is perhaps less imaginative (and certainly less fantastic) than that of Elizabethan singers, but it comes nearer to present life and reality.

LEIGH HUNT

One of the least known of these minor poets, Thomas Beddoes, was gifted in a way to remind us of the strange genius of Blake. He wrote not much, his life being too broken and disappointed; but running through his scanty verse is a

thread of the pure gold of poetry. In a single stanza of his "Dream Pedlary" he has reflected the spirit of the whole romantic movement:

If there were dreams to sell,
What would you buy?

Some cost a passing bell,

Some a light sigh

That shakes from Life's fresh crown

Only a rose-leaf down.

If there were dreams to sell,

Merry and sad to tell,

And the crier rang the bell,
What would you buy?

THE WORK OF WALTER SCOTT (1771-1832)

To read Scott is to read Scotland. Of no other modern author can it so freely be said that he gave to literature a whole country, its scenery, its people, its history and traditions, its ideals of faith and courage and loyalty.

That is a large achievement, but that is not all. It was Scott, more than any other author, who brought poetry and romance home to ordinary readers; and with romance came pleasure, wholesome and refreshing as a drink from a living spring. When he began to write, the novel was in a sad state,— sentimental, sensational, fantastic, devoted to what Charles Lamb described as wildly improbable events and to characters that belong neither to this world nor to any other conceivable one. When his work was done, the novel had been raised to its present position as the most powerful literary influence that bears upon the human mind. Among novelists, therefore, Scott deserves his title of "the first of the modern race of giants."

Life. To his family, descendants of the old Borderers, Scott owed that intensely patriotic quality which glows in all his work. He is said. to have borne strong resemblance to his grandfather, "Old Bardie Scott," an unbending clansman who vowed never to cut his beard till a Stuart prince came back to the throne. The clansmen were now

citizens of the Empire, but their loyalty to hereditary chiefs is reflected in Scott's reverence for everything pertaining to rank or royalty.

First

He was born (1771) in Edinburgh, but his early associations were all of the open country. Some illness had left him lame of foot, and with the hope of a cure he was sent to relatives at Sandy Impressions Knowe. There in the heart of the Border he spent his days on the hills with the shepherds, listening to Scottish legends. At bedtime his grandmother told him tales of the clans; and when he could read for himself he learned by heart Percy's Reliques of Ancient Poetry. So the scenes which he loved because of their wild beauty became sacred because of their historical association. Even in that early day his heart had framed the sentiment which found expression in his Lay of the Last Minstrel :

Breathes there the man with soul so dead,

Who never to himself hath said:

This is my own, my native land?

At school, and at college at Edinburgh, the boy's heart was never in his books, unless perchance they contained something of the tradiWork and tion of Scotland. After college he worked in his father's Play law office, became an advocate, and for twenty years followed the law. His vacations were spent "making raids," as he said, into the Highlands, adding to his enormous store of old tales and ballads. A companion on one of these trips gives us a picture of the man:

"Eh me, sic an endless fund o' humour and drollery as he had wi' him! Never ten yards but we were either laughing or roaring and singing. Whenever we stopped, how brawlie he suited himsel' to everybody! He aye did as the lave did; never made himsel' the great man, or took ony airs in the company."

This boyish delight in roaming, in new scenes, in new people met frankly under the open sky, is characteristic of Scott's poems and novels, which never move freely until they are out of doors. The vigor of these works may be partially accounted for by the fact that Scott was a hard worker and a hearty player,—a capital combination. He was past thirty when he began to write.1 By that time he had been appointed Clerk of Sessions, and also Sheriff of Selkirkshire

1 This refers to original composition. In 1796 Scott published some translations of German romantic ballads, and in 1802 his Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. The latter was a collection of old ballads, to some of which Scott gave a more modern form.

His Poems

THE LIFE OF SCOTT

237

(he took that hangman's job, and kept it even after he had won fame, just for the money there was in it); and these offices, together with his wife's dowry, provided a comfortable income. When his first poem, The Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805), met with immense success he gladly gave up the law, and wrote Marmion (1808) and The Lady of the Lake (1810). These increased his good fortune; but his later poems were of inferior quality, and met with a cool reception. Meanwhile Byron had appeared to dazzle the reading public. Scott recognized the greater poetic genius of the author of Childe Harold,

and sought another field where he was safe from all rivals.

Rummaging in a cabinet

one day after some fish

First

Romances

ing tackle, he

found a manuscript long neglected and forgotten. Instead of going fishing Scott read his manuscript, was fascinated by it, and presently began to write in headlong fashion. In three weeks he added sixty-five chapters to his old romance, and published it as Waverley (1814) without signing his name. Then he went away on another "raid "

WALTER SCOTT

to the Highlands. When he returned, at the end of the summer, he learned that his book had made a tremendous sensation, and that Fame, hat in hand, had been waiting at his door for some weeks.

In the next ten years Scott won his name of "the Wizard of the North," for it seemed that only magic could produce stories of such quality in such numbers: Guy Mannering, Rob Roy, Old Mortality, Redgauntlet, Heart of Midlothian, portraying the deathless romance of Scotland; and Ivanhoe, Kenilworth, The Talisman and other novels which changed dull history to a drama of fascinating characters. Not only England but the Continent hailed this magnificent work with

delight. Money and fame poured in upon the author. Fortune appeared for once "with both hands full." Then the crash came.

To understand the calamity one must remember that Scott regarded literature not as an art but as a profitable business; that he aimed to be not a great writer but a lord of high degree. He had been made a baronet, and was childishly proud of the title; his work and his vast earnings were devoted to the dream of a feudal house which should endure through the centuries and look back to Sir Walter as its noble founder. While living modestly on his income at Ashestiel he had used the earnings of his poems to buy a rough farm at Clarty Hole, on the Tweed, and had changed its unromantic name to Abbotsford.

More land was rapidly added and "improved" to make a lordly estate; then came the building of a castle, where Scott entertained lavishly, as lavishly as any laird or chieftain of the olden time, offering to all visitors "the honors of Scotland."

Enormous sums were spent on this bubble, and still more money was needed. To increase his income Scott went into secret partnership with his publishers, indulged in speculative ventures, ran the firm upon the shoals, drew large sums in advance of his earnings. Suddenly came a business panic; the publishing firm failed miserably; and at fifty-five Scott, having too much honest pride to take advantage of the bankruptcy laws, found himself facing a debt of more than a hundred thousand pounds.