It is very remarkable that Walter Scott, a Tory to the soul, should, by his apparently contradictory yet still most consistent love of the _outre_, have had a keen amateur sympathy for outlaws. It is much more remarkable, however, that, still retaining his faith in king and nobles, Church and State, he should have pushed his appreciation of such men to the degree of marvellously comprehending--nay, enjoying--certain types of skepticism which sprang up in fiercest opposition to authority; urged into existence by its abuses, as germs of plants have been thought to be electrified into life by sharp blows. And it is most remarkable of all, that he did this at a time when none among his English readers seem to have had any comprehension whatever of these characters, or to have surmised the fact that to merely understand and depict them, the writer must have ventured into fearful depths of reflection and of study. In treating these characters, Walter Scott seems to become positively _subjective_--and I will venture to say that it is the only instance of the slightest approach to anything of the kind to be found in all his writings. Unlike Byron, who was painfully conscious, not of the nature of his want in this respect, but of _something_ wanting, Scott nowhere else betrays the slightest consciousness of his continual life under limitations, when, _plump!_ we find him making a headlong leap right into the very centre of that terrible pool whose waters feed the forbidden-fruit tree of good and of evil.