The characters to which I particularly refer in Sir Walter Scott's novels are those of the Templar, Brian de Bois Guilbert, in 'Ivanhoe;' of the gypsy Hayraddin Maugrabin in 'Quentin Durward;' of Dryfesdale, the steward, in 'The Abbot;' and of the 'leech' Henbane Dwining, in 'The Fair Maid of Perth.' There are several others which more or less resemble these, as, for instance, Ranald Mac Eagh, the Child of the Mist, in 'Montrose,' and Rashleigh, in 'Rob Roy;' but the latter, considered by themselves, are only partly developed. In fact, if Scott had given to the world only _one_ of these outlaws of faith, there would have been but little ground for inferring that his mind had ever taken so daring a range as I venture to claim for him. It is in his constant, wistful return, in one form or the other, to that terrible type of humanity--the man who, as a matter of intensely sincere faith, has freed himself from all adherence to the laws of man or GOD--that we find the clue to the _real_ nature of the author's extraordinary sympathy for the most daring, yet most subtle example of the law-breaker. In comparing these characters carefully, we find that each by contrast appears far more perfect than when separate--as the bone, which, however excellent its state of preservation may be, never seems to the eye of the physiologist so complete as when in its place in the complete skeleton. And through this contrast we learn that Scott, having by sympathy and historical-romantic study, comprehended the lost secret of all _illuminee_ mysteries--that of human dependence on nought save the laws of a mysterious and terrible Nature--could not refrain from ever and anon whispering the royal secret, though it were only to the rustling reeds and rushes of fashionable novels. Having learned, though in an illegitimate way, that the friend of PAN, the great king of the golden touch, had ass's ears, he _must_ tell it again, though in murmurs and whispers: 'Qui cum ne prodere visum Dedecus auderet, cupiens efferre sub auras, Nec posset reticere tamen, secedit, humumque Effodit: et domini quales aspexerit aures, Vox refert parva; terraeque immurmurat haustae.'[10]