help, he devoted his life and his pen to the herculean task of removing this mountain of debt. Thus opens the last, the shortest, and the saddest of the periods into which we have marked out this great life. - Already his bodily health had been heavily shaken by severe illness. The first symptoms of apoplexy had appeared in 1823, but the valiant soul was never shaken by the failing of the once sturdy frame. Amid the gloom of his financial distress, under the deeper sorrow of his wife's death, which befell him in the same year, the "old struggler," as he called himself, toiled bravely on. He wrote more novels; he wrote his elaborate Life of Napoleon (seven volumes); he wrote various series of Tales of a Grandfather. These were all exceedingly profitable. In five years he had cleared off more than half the indebtedness. He would soon have redeemed all the obligations of Ballantyne & Co., had his health lasted. As it was, all the obligations were redeemed after his death by his copyrights. But the end was nigh. There came a day- Feb. 15, 1830- when he fell speechless in his drawing-room under a stroke of paralysis. From that time he never was the same man, and "a cloudiness" in his words and arrangement shows that the shock had told upon the mind. Fits of apoplexy and paralysis occurred at intervals during that and the following year; and, as a last hope, the worn-out workman sailed in the autumn of 1831 for Malta and Italy. He lived at Naples and at Rome for about six months; but on his way home down the Rhine the relentless malady struck him a mortal blow. His earnest wish was to die at Abbots ford, the loved place that had cost him so dear; and there he soon found himself, with his grandchildren and his dogs playing round the chair he could not leave. Perhaps the saddest scene of all this sad time was the last effort of the veteran to return to his old occupation. On the 17th of July, awaking from sleep, he desired his writing-materials to be prepared. When the chair, in which he lay propped up with pillows, was moved into his study and placed before the desk, his daughter put a pen into his hand; but, alas! there was no power in the fingers to close on the familiar thing. It dropped upon the paper, and the helpless old man sank back to weep in silence. Little more than two months later (Sept. 21, 1832), this great man died, as he had wished to die, at Abbotsford, with all his children round his bed; and, on the fifth day after, his body was laid beside the dust of his wife in Dryburgh Abbey. Numerous published likenesses have made Sir Walter's countenance familiar. The long upper lip and large mouth he derived from his ancestress Meg Murray. His forehead was high and almost conical, his complexion was fair, and his hair, which was light chestnut in youth, whitened after his troubles. His eyes were always light blue, and were surmounted by bushy, "pent-house" eyebrows. The expression of his countenance was somewhat heavy, but in conversation it lightened up with great animation. In person he was tall and vigorous. A true lover of nature, he told our Washington Irving that he should die if he did not see the heather once a year. He loved outdoor life, and was a famous sportsman and rider. His affection for dogs and horses, indeed, for all dumb animals, was exceedingly strong; and he had a peculiar tenderness for sheep, arising, he thought, from his having often been laid beside them when a child, by a shepherd who had him in charge. He had strong political prejudices, having been an inveterate Tory and Conservative all his life. Yet he had a kindly leaning to smugglers and poachers and "ne'er-do-weels" generally. He had a large-hearted and open-handed charity, and was never happier than when helping others. If the spiritual side of his nature was not greatly developed, it may have been because those experiences that try the soul did not come till late in life. Of the purely natural man, he was as noble an example as the world has seen. The tree of romance that Scott planted has borne wondrous and varied fruitage. The two generations that have gone by since he died have seen the novel take on many forms. Bulwer, Dickens, Thackeray, George Eliot, these are names not only of individuals, but of schools. In our own day, taste runs strongly to the fiction of analysis, - to the vivisection of character, rather than the portrayal of incident. It is thought clever to write a novel with no story at all. This is probably a temporary fashion. Romantic art is eternal, because it appeals to an indestructible natural appetite. And Walter Scott is, and will remain, king of the romantics. 1.- A PICTURE OF ANGLO-NORMAN DAYS. [The following admirable piece of historico-descriptive writing forms the opening chapter of Scott's romance of Ivanhoe.] FIRST READING. IN that pleasant1 district of merry England which is watered by the river Don, there extended in ancient times a large forest, covering the greater part of the beautiful hills and valleys which lie between Sheffield and the pleasant2 town of Doncaster. The remains of this extensive wood are still to be seen at the noble seats of Wentworth, of Wharncliffe Park, and around Rotherham. Here haunted of yore the fabulous Dragon of Wantley; here were fought many of the most desperate battles during the Civil War of the Roses; and here also flourished in ancient times those bands of gallant outlaws, whose deeds have been rendered so popular in English song. Such being our chief scene, the date of our story refers to a period towards the end of the reign of Rich 1 In that pleasant, etc. What | two factions into which the counkind of sentence, rhetorically? 2 pleasant. Improve the sentence by substituting a synonym. 8 Doncaster. Locate this town. 4 Dragon of Wantley, a monster that figures in English folk-lore. 5 War of the Roses. A disastrous civil contest which desolated England during the thirty years from 1455 to 1485: so called because the try was divided upheld the two several claims to the throne put forth by the house (family) of York and the house of Lancaster, whose badges were the white and the red rose respectively. The accession of Henry VII. (1456–1509) may be said to have terminated this civil war. 6 outlaws... song. As the ballad of Robin Hood. ard the First, when his return from his long captivity had become an event rather wished than hoped for by his despairing subjects, who were in the mean time subjected to every species of subordinate oppression. The nobles, whose power had become exorbitant 2 during the reign of Stephen, and whom the prudence of Henry the Second3 had scarcely reduced into some degree of subjection to the Crown, had now resumed their ancient license in its utmost extent; despising the feeble interference of the English Council of State, fortifying their castles, increasing the number of their dependents, reducing all around them to a state of vassalage, and striving by every means in their power to place themselves each at the head of such forces as might enable him to make a figure in the national convulsions which appeared to be impending. 6 The situation of the inferior gentry, or franklins as they were called, who, by the law and spirit of the English constitution, were entitled to hold themselves independent of feudal tyranny, became now unusually precarious. If, as was most generally the case, they placed themselves under the protection of any of the petty kings in their vicinity, accepted of feudal offices in his household, or bound themselves, by mutual trea 1 Richard the First, king of England during the latter part of the twelfth century. He took part in the third Crusade, on his return from which he was held prisoner by the Archduke of Austria for about two years. 2 exorbitant, excessive. 8 Henry the Second, king of England from 1154 to 1189. 4 vassalage. See Webster. 5 make a figure. Explain. 6 franklin (connected with frank free), a small landholder in old English times. 7 feudal. See Webster. |