ANNE OF GEIERSTEIN. With "The Fair Maid of Perth" we take farewell of Scott at his best, though "even from the stubble one may tell what the grain has been." "Anne of Geierstein" was no favourite of the author's, and, as Mr. Matthew Arnold says, the world does not contemplate with pleasure what the poet creates without joy. The novel was begun in the late summer or autumn of 1828, but for part of the time Scott neglected his Diary. He was become (June 19) "a writing automaton," and suffered much pain from rheumatism and rheumatic headaches. He feared that this affected "the quality of the stuff," but he was not one who "waited for the spark from heaven to fall." He plodded on, in these late years, _invita Minerva_. Of old the goddess had generally been willing; but now his task took the likeness of journalism, the round had to be trodden, be he well or be he ill. Masterpieces are not written thus: it is the moral effort that we admire, and the contempt for fame, even for art, compared with the respect for duty. Scott believed in his duty and in his power of will, but imagination will not obey a moral dictate. We find Ballantyne "complaining of his manuscript": the wearied hand no longer wrote legibly, despite the mechanical supports which he used. "I cannot trace my _pieds de mouche_ but with great labour and trouble" (June 22). He "wrought and endured," afflicted by a hypochondriacal melancholy: "it may be chased away by study or by exercise." He is nobly master of his fate, in every event. In July we find him "beginning Simond's 'Switzerland,'" in search of local colour, for he did not know Switzerland, nor even the Rhine. His description of a storm in the mountains is, in the circumstances, wonderfully accurate. He simply drew the hills above Loch Skene on a grander scale. Morritt and Sir James Stuart of Allanbank, who were well acquainted with the scenes, were "surprised at the felicity with which he divined its character, and outdid, by the force of imagination, all the efforts of a thousand actual tourists." Their praise much encouraged Sir Walter (Lockhart, ix. 279). Ballantyne "bored and bothered me with his criticisms," he said, for he did not pretend to be a geologist, and to describe the formation of the rocks. In January he "muzzed on"--I can call it little better--with "Anne of Geierstein." The "materials are excellent, but the power of using them is failing." In February (1829) he was better "pleased with his work." The reason why he was better pleased may perhaps be gathered from his Journal (Feb. 17): "I called on Skene, and borrowed a volume of his journal to get some information about Burgundy and Provence. Something may be made out of King René, but I wish I had thought of him sooner." This is elucidated by a note of Mr. Skene's: "Sir Walter wished to see a paper which I had some time before contributed to the Memoirs of the Society of Antiquaries on the subject of the secret tribunals of