PECUNIARY TROUBLES.--In the financial crash of 1825-6, he was largely involved. As a silent partner in the publishing house of the Ballantynes, and as connected with them in the affairs of Constable & Co., he found himself, by the failure of these houses, legally liable to the amount of £117,000. To relieve himself, he might have taken the benefit of the _bankrupt law_; or, such was his popularity, that his friends desired to raise a subscription to cover the amount of his indebtedness; but he was now to show by his conduct that, if the author was great, the man was greater. He refused all assistance, and even rejected general sympathy. He determined to relieve himself, to pay his debts, or die in the effort. He left Abbotsford, and took frugal lodgings in Edinburgh; curtailed all his expenses, and went to work--which was over-work--not for fame, but for guineas; and he gained both. His first novel after this, and the one which was to test the practicability of his plan, was _Woodstock_, a tale of the troublous times of the Civil War, in the last chapter of which he draws the picture of the restored Charles coming in peaceful procession to his throne. This he wrote in three months; and for it he received upwards of £8000. With this and the proceeds of his succeeding works, he was enabled to pay over to his creditors the large sum of £70,000; a feat unparalleled in the history of literature. But the anxiety and the labor were too much even for his powerful constitution: he died in his heroic attempt. HIS MANLY PURPOSE.--More for money than for reputation, he compiled hastily, and from partial and incomplete material, a _Life of Napoleon Bonaparte_, which appeared in 1827. The style is charming and the work eminently readable; but it contains many faults, is by no means unprejudiced, and, as far as pure truth is concerned, is, in parts, almost as much of a romance as any of the Waverley novels; but, for the first two editions, he received the enormous sum of £18,000. The work was accomplished in the space of one year. Among the other _task-work_ books were the two series of _The Chronicles of the Canongate_ (1827 and 1828), the latter of which contains the beautiful story of _St. Valentine's Day_, or _The Fair Maid of Perth_. It is written in his finest vein, especially in those chapters which describe the famous Battle of the Clans. In 1829 appeared _Anne of Geierstein_, another story presenting the figure of Charles of Burgundy, and his defeat and death in the battle with the Swiss at Nancy.