and thus his example has borne, and still bears, new fruit in the most innocent of intellectual pleasures. For a later generation Scott has done what the romances and the epics did for chivalry, and fairy-tales for all the world. In an unexpected place, the Memoirs of Dr. Adam Clarke, we find a tribute to old romance and fairy-tale. Had he not read these in boyhood, the learned and excellent Doctor declares, his religion would have lacked imagination, and his character the courage which he displayed in face of many dangers. Examples of lofty fancy, of chivalrous courage, all that can attract and inspire youth, all that makes against moody despair, and stolid commonplace, and creeping prose, Scott gives, even in this late work, and he enlightens all with humour, as in his admirable description of the despotic German innkeeper, before whom the Earl of Oxford has to lower his bonnet. While youth is youth, and men have yet a smack of it, we can be happy with Arthur Philipson in his duel, with Sigismund in the fight, with the cheery maid of Anne of Geierstein, and her honest ideas of love on first principles, with that royal philosopher King René, with the sagacious loyalty of Oxford, and the manly patriotism of the peasant noble. That the conclusion is entangled, and the knots rather broken than disengaged, is no unusual fault in Scott: it haunted his works from the beginning. Considering his health, his absence, in this tale, from scenes familiar to him, and times familiar to his readers, the novel is remarkable for its interest. What success and merit it possesses are mainly due, however, to a determined effort of the will, not to a delighted and conscious inspiration. In his last essays, though the will was indomitable, the material machinery of the brain was shattered, and we can only criticise them as psychological examples of unconquered courage. He had to see James Ballantyne, broken by his wife's death, and "squandering his thoughts and senses upon dowdy metaphysics, and abstruse theology." It was better for Scott to work on, and die at his task, at the labour of a life which would not be complete, would not offer the same invigorating spectacle, had he thrown his pen away and confessed himself defeated. The historical sources of "Anne of Geierstein" are explained in Scott's own Introduction and Notes. All the later part of the novel follows the narrative of Commines closely, save for certain dramatic liberties, as we shall point out in our additional annotations. ANDREW LANG. _May 1894._ INTRODUCTION TO ANNE OF GEIERSTEIN.