It is not possible--it never is in such cases--to give a very exact account of the causes which led Walter Scott, when the public seemed to be a little tiring of the verse-romances which have been discussed in the last chapter, to take to romances in prose. The example of Miss Edgeworth, if a true cause at all, could affect only his selection of Scotch manners to illustrate his histories, not his adoption of the historical style itself. But he did adopt it; and, fishing out from an old desk the beginnings of a story which he had left unfinished, or rather had scarce commenced, years earlier, he fashioned it into _Waverley_. This appearing in the year 1814 at a serious crisis in his own affairs, opened at once a new career of fame and fortune to him, and a previously unknown field of exploit and popularity to the English novel. The extraordinary greatness of Scott--who in everything but pure style, and the expression of the highest raptures of love, thought, and nature, ranks with the greatest writers of the world--is not better indicated by any single fact than by the fact that it is impossible to describe his novels in any simple formula. He practically created the historical novel; and, what is more, he elaborated it to such an extent that no really important additions to his scheme have been made since. But not all his novels are historical. The two which immediately succeeded _Waverley_, and which perhaps the best judges consider his best,--_Guy Mannering_ and _The Antiquary_,--have only the faintest touch of history about them, and might have none at all without affecting their excellence; while one of the most powerful of his later books, _St. Ronan's Well_, is almost absolutely virgin of fact. So also, though his incomparable delineation of national manners, speech, and character, of the _cosas de Escocia_ generally, is one of the principal sources of his interest, _Ivanhoe_, which has perhaps been the most popular of all his books, _Kenilworth_, which is not far below it in popularity or in merit, and one or two others, have nothing at all of Scotland in them; and the altogether admirable romance of _Quentin Durward_, one of his four or five masterpieces, so little that what there is plays the smallest part in the success. So yet again, historical novelist as Scott is, and admirably as he has utilised and revivified history, he is by no means an extremely accurate historical scholar, and is wont not merely to play tricks with history to suit his story,--that is probably always allowable,--but to commit anachronisms which are quite unnecessary and even a little teasing.