When, however, a man has been seated on such a lofty pinnacle as was Sir Walter Scott, we wish to know something of his personal traits, and the steps by which he advanced to fame. Was he overrated, as most famous men have been? What is the niche he will probably occupy in the temple of literary fame? What are the characteristics of his productions? What gave him his prodigious and extraordinary popularity? Was he a born genius, like Byron and Burns, or was he merely a most industrious worker, aided by fortunate circumstances and the caprices of fashion? What were the intellectual forces of his day, and how did he come to be counted among them? All these points it is difficult to answer satisfactorily, but some light may be shed upon them. The bulky volumes of Lockhart's Biography constitute a mine of information about Scott, but are now heavy reading, without much vivacity,--affording a strong contrast to Boswell's Life of Johnson, which concealed nothing that we would like to know. A son-in-law is not likely to be a dispassionate biographer, especially when family pride and interests restrain him. On the other hand, it is not wise for a biographer to be too candid, and belittle his hero by the enumeration of foibles not consistent with the general tenor of the man's life. Lockhart's knowledge of his subject and his literary skill have given us much; and, with Scott's own letters and the critical notice of his contemporaries, both the man and his works may be fairly estimated. Most biographers aim to make the birth and parentage of their heroes as respectable as possible. Of authors who are "nobly born" there are very few; most English and Scotch literary men are descended from ancestors of the middle class,--lawyers, clergymen, physicians, small landed proprietors, merchants, and so on,--who were able to give their sons an education in the universities. Sir Walter Scott traced his descent to an ancient Scottish chief. His grandfather, Robert Scott, was bred to the sea, but, being ship-wrecked near Dundee, he became a farmer, and was active in the cattle-trade. Scott's father was a Writer to the Signet in Edinburgh,--what would be called in England a solicitor,--a thriving, respectable man, having a large and lucrative legal practice, and being highly esteemed for his industry and integrity; a zealous Presbyterian, formal and precise in manner, strict in the observance of the Sabbath, and of all that he considered to be right. His wife, Anne Rutherford, was the daughter of a professor of medicine in the University of Edinburgh,--a lady of rather better education than the average of her time; a mother whom Sir Walter remembered with great tenderness, and to whose ample memory and power of graphic description he owed much of his own skill in reproducing the past. Twelve children were the offspring of this marriage, although only five survived very early youth.