admirably succeeded in re-producing his bad morality, his superficial thoughts, and his characterless portraits, without the fervor of his feeling, the keenness of his sensations, the ease and vigor of his language, the flash of his wit, or the knowledge of the world, and the manly common-sense which redeemed and gave value to what else had been entirely worthless. If the name of Lord Byron naturally links itself with the fashionable life of great cities; with circles where men and women live mutually to attract and please each other; where the passions are cherished as stimulants and resources against ennui, are fostered by luxurious idleness, and heightened by all the aids that an old and elaborate material civilization can add to the charms of beauty, and the excitements of brilliant assemblies; where art and literature are degraded into handmaids and bondslaves of sensuality; where the vanity of social distinction fires the tongue of the eloquent speaker, wakens the harp of the poet, colors the canvas of the painter, moulds the manners and sways the actions, directs even the loves and the hatreds of all; no less naturally does the name of Sir Walter Scott stand as the symbol and representative of the life and tastes of the country aristocracy, who bear the titles and hold the lands of the feudal barons, and of the country gentlemen whose habits and manners are in such perfect contrast to those of the Squire Westerns to whose places they have succeeded. Possessing in a high degree the active and athletic frame, the robust health, the hardy training, the vigorous nerve, the bold spirit, the frank bearing, and the genial kindness of the gentlemen of the olden time, he could heartily appreciate and unhesitatingly approve all that time and revolution had spared of feudal dominion and territorial grandeur. The ancient loyalty, so happily tempering the firmness of a principle with the fervor of a feeling, never beat higher in the heart of a cavalier of the seventeenth than in that of the Scottish advocate of the nineteenth century. Every one will remember that he refused to write a life of Mary Queen of Scots, because in reference to her conduct, his feelings were at variance with his judgment. And in painting those old times in which his imagination delighted to revel, all that would most have revolted our modern mildness of manners, and shocked our modern sense of justice, was softened down or dropped out of sight, and the nobler features of those ages, their courage, their devotion, their strength and clearness of purpose, their marked individuality of character, their impulses of heroism and delicacy, their manly enterprise, their picturesque costumes and manners of life, were all brought into bold relief, and placed before the reader with such fullness of detail, in such grandeur of outline, in such bright and vivid coloring, as gave even to the unimaginative a more distinct conception of, and a more lively sympathy