When you read Charles Kingsley’s story of _Westward, Ho!_ (which you surely should read, as well as such other matter as the same author has written relating to Raleigh) you will get a live glimpse of this noble knight of letters, and of those other brave and adventurous sailors of Devonshire, who in those times took the keels of Plymouth over great wastes of water. Kingsley writes of the heroes of his native Devon, in the true Elizabethan humor--putting fiery love and life into his writing; the roar of Atlantic gales breaks into his pages, and they show, up and down, splashes of storm-driven brine. _Nigel and Harrison._ In going back now to the earlier years of King James’ reign, I shall make no apology for calling attention to that engaging old story of the _Fortunes of Nigel_. I know it is the fashion with many of the astute critics of the day to pick flaws in Sir Walter, and to expatiate on his blunders and shortcomings; nevertheless, I do not think my readers can do better--in aiming to acquaint themselves with this epoch of English history--than to read over again Scott’s representation of the personality and the surroundings of the pedant King. There may be errors in minor dates, errors of detail; but the larger truths respecting the awkwardness and the pedantries of the first Stuart King, and respecting the Scotch adventurers who hung pressingly upon his skirts, and the lawless street scenes which in those days did really disturb the quietude of the great metropolis, are pictured with a liveliness which will make them unforgetable. Macaulay says that out of the gleanings left by historic harvesters Scott has made “a history scarce less valuable than theirs.” Nor do I think there is in the _Fortunes of Nigel_ a deviation from the truth (of which many must be admitted) so extravagant and misleading as Mr. Freeman’s averment, that in _Ivanhoe_ “there is a mistake in every line.” There are small truths and large truths; and the competent artist knows which to seize upon. Titian committed some fearful anachronisms, and put Venetian stuffs upon Judean women; Balthasar Denner, on the other hand, painted with minute truthfulness every stubby hair in a man’s beard, and no tailor could have excepted to his button-holes: nobody knows Denner; Titian reigns.