. . . The Pirate is, I know, not one of Scott's best: the Women, Minna, Brenda, Norna, are poor theatrical figures. But Magnus and Jack Bunce and Claud Halcro (though the latter rather wearisome) are substantial enough: how wholesomely they swear! and no one ever thinks of blaming Scott for it. There is a passage where the Company at Burgh Westra are summoned by Magnus to go down to the Shore to see the Boats go off to the Deep Sea fishing, and 'they followed his stately step to the Shore as the Herd of Deer follows the leading Stag, with all manner of respectful Observance.' This, coming in at the close of the preceding unaffected Narrative is to me like Homer, whom Scott really resembles in the simplicity and ease of his Story. This is far more poetical in my Eyes than all the Effort of ---, ---, etc. And which of them has written such a Lyric as 'Farewell to Northmaven'? I finished the Book with Sadness; thinking I might never read it again. . . . P.S. Can't you send me your Paper about the Novelists? As to which is the best of all I can't say: that Richardson (with all his twaddle) is better than Fielding, I am quite certain. There is nothing at all comparable to Lovelace in all Fielding, whose Characters are common and vulgar types; of Squires, Ostlers, Lady's maids, etc., very easily drawn. I am equally sure that Miss Austen cannot be third, any more than first or second: I think you were rather drawn away by a fashion when you put her there: and really old Spedding seems to me to have been the Stag whom so many followed in that fashion. She is capital as far as she goes: but she never goes out of the Parlour; if but Magnus Troil, or Jack Bunce, or even one of Fielding's Brutes, would but dash in upon the Gentility and swear a round Oath or two! I must think the 'Woman in White,' with her Count Fosco, far beyond all that. Cowell constantly reads Miss Austen at night after his Sanskrit Philology is done: it composes him, like Gruel: or like Paisiello's Music, which Napoleon liked above all other, because he said it didn't interrupt his Thoughts. WOODBRIDGE, _Dec._ 29 [1871]. MY DEAR POLLOCK, If you come here, come some very fine weather, when we look at our best inland, and you may take charge of my Boat on the River. I doubt I did my Eyes damage this Summer by steering in the Sun, and peering out for the Beacons that mark the Channel; but your Eyes are proof against this, and I shall resign the command to you, as you wrote that you liked it at Clovelly. . . .