ized nation is the force of this philanthropic maxim so nobly illustrated as in ours-thanks to our glorious institutions. A great cause, probably, of Scott's low estimate of letters, was the facility with which he wrote himself. What costs us little we are apt to prize little. If diamonds were as common as pebbles, and gold dust as any other, who would stoop to gather them? It was the prostitution of his muse, by the by, for this same gold dust which brought a sharp rebuke on the poet from Lord Byron, in his “English Bards " "For this we spurn Apollo's venal son"; a coarse cut, and the imputation about as true as most satire —that is, not true at all. This was indited in his lordship's earlier days, when he most chivalrously disclaimed all purpose of bartering his rhymes for gold. He lived long enough, however, to weigh his literary wares in as nice a moneybalance as any more vulgar manufacturer ever did. And, in truth, it would be ridiculous if the produce of the brain should not bring its price, in this form as well as any other; there is little danger, we imagine, of finding too much gold in the bowels of Parnassus. Scott took a more sensible view of things. In a letter to Ellis, written soon after the publication of the "Minstrelsy," he observes: "People may say this and that of the pleasure of fame, or of profit, as a motive of writing; I think the only pleasure is in the actual exertion and research, and I would no more write upon any other terms than I would hunt merely to dine upon hare-soup. At the same time, if credit and profit came unlooked for I would no more quarrel with them than with the soup." Even this declaration was somewhat more magnanimous than was warranted by his subse quent conduct. The truth is, he soon found out, especially after the Waverley vein had opened, that he had hit on a gold mine. The prodigious returns he got gave the whole thing the aspect of a speculation. Every new work was an adventure; and the proceeds naturally suggested the indulgence of the most extravagant schemes of expense, which, in their turn, stimulated him to fresh efforts. In this way the "profits " became, whatever they might have been once, a principal incentive to, as they were the recompense of, exertion. His productions were cash articles, and were estimated by him more on the Hudibrastic rule of "the real worth of a thing" than by any fanciful standard of fame. He bowed with deference to the judgment of the book-sellers, and trimmed his sails dexterously as the "aura popularis shifted. "If it is na weil bobbit," he writes to his printer, on turning out a less lucky novel, "we'll bobb it again." His muse was of that school who seek the greatest happiness of the greatest possible number. We can hardly imagine him invoking her, like Milton "Still govern thou my song, Urania, and fit audience find, though few." Still less can we imagine him, like the blind old bard, feeding his soul with visions of posthumous glory, and spinning out epics for five pounds apiece. It is singular that Scott, although he set as high a money value on his productions as the most enthusiastic of the "trade" could have done, in a literary view, should have held them so cheap. "Whatever others may be," he said, "I have never been a partisan of my own poetry; as John Wilkes declared that, 'in the height of his success, he had himself never been a Wilkite.'" Considering the poet's popularity, this was but an indifferent compliment to the taste of his age. With all this disparagement of his own productions, however, Scott was not insensible to criticism. He says somewhere, indeed, that "if he had been conscious of a single vulnerable point in himself, he would not have taken up the business of writing." But on another occasion he writes, "I make it a rule never to read the attacks made upon me." And Captain Hall remarks: "He never reads the criticisms on his books; this I know, from the most unquestionable authority. Praise, he says, gives him no pleasure, and censure annoys him." Madame de Graffigny says, also, of Voltaire, that "he was altogether indifferent to praise, but the least word from his enemies drove him crazy." Yet both these authors banqueted on the sweets of panegyric as much as any who ever lived. They were in the condition of an epicure, whose palate has lost its relish for the dainty fare in which it has been so long reveling, without becoming less sensible to the annoyances of sharper and coarser flavors. It may afford some consolation to humble mediocrity, to the less fortunate votaries of the muse, that those who have reached the summit of Parnassus are not much more contented with their condition than those who are scrambling among the bushes at the bottom of the mountain. The fact seems to be, as Scott himself intimates more than once, that the joy is in the chase, whether in the prose or the poetry of life. But it is high time to terminate our lucubrations, which, however imperfect and unsatisfactory, have already run to a length that must trespass on the patience of the reader. We rise from the perusal of these delightful volumes with the same sort of melancholy feeling with which we wake from a pleasant dream. The concluding volume, of which such ominous presage is given in the last sentence of the fifth, has not yet reached us; but we know enough to anticipate the sad catastrophe it is to unfold of the drama. In those which we have seen, however, we have beheld a succession of interesting characters come upon the scene and pass away to their long home. "Bright eyes now closed in dust, gay voices for ever silenced," seem to haunt us, too, as we write. The imagination reverts to Abbotsford-the romantic and once brilliant Abbotsford-the magical creation of his hands. We see its halls radiant with the hospitality of his benevolent heart, thronged with pilgrims from every land, assembled to pay homage at the shrine of genius, echoing to the blithe music of those festal holidays, when young and old met to renew the usages of the good old times. "These were its charms-but all these charms are fled." Its courts are desolate, or trodden only by the foot of the stranger. The stranger sits under the shadows of the trees which his hand planted. The spell of the enchanter is dissolved. His wand is broken. And the mighty Minstrel himself now sleeps in the bosom of the peaceful scenes, embellished by his taste and which his genius has made immortal. THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF WOMAN.* INVENTIVE Writing is full of commonplace respecting woman, drawn from the feelings or the imagination, sometimes depicting her character as a brilliant constellation of all the virtues, sometimes as a virulent concentration of all the vices and weaknesses incident to human nature. For instance, we take up Otway's "Orphan," and we read in one place verses like these: "Who can describe Women's hypocrisies? Their subtile wiles, And again, at another page, these: "Your sex Was never in the right: you're always false Or silly. Even your dreams are not more * 1. Memoirs of Celebrated Women of all Countries. By Madame Junot. 2 vols. 2. Noble Deeds of Woman. 2 vols., 12mo. 1836. 3. The History of the Condition of Women in Various Ages and Nations. By Mrs. D. L. Child. 2 vols., 12mo. 1835. 4. Legouvé, Le Mérite des Femmes. |