And to this merit has to be added the great merit of his tales as descriptions of typical representatives of all classes of society. In the novels of the eighteenth century--Fielding's, for example--we pass from one tavern scene to another; in Scott's we are introduced into private life, with all its domestic details. The descriptions owe their peculiar excellence to the vigorous realism with which each separate personage is depicted. Englishmen have always specially prized in their authors the gift of describing with such distinct, tangible detail that the object described stands out in relief before the reader's eye; their sturdy, healthy intellects enjoy the graphic vigour. They like the poetical picture executed in such strong colours that we see it before us as if it were a coat of arms painted on a shield. Scott, as a novelist, gratified this taste. His readers gladly forgave him the terrible prolixity of his descriptions and his conversations, because the result was a graphic representation, attained either by enumerating a long list of attributes or by perpetual insistence upon some one characteristic trait. And there is no doubt, that, tiresome as his procedure may sometimes be, he is one of the greatest character portrayers in all literature. Romanticism has produced nothing finer than such female characters as Diana Vernon in _Rob Roy_ and Jeanie Deans in _The Heart of Midlothian_, or such a historic portrait as Louis XI. in _Quentin Durward_. But in his production of fiction, Scott was from the beginning guilty of one great malpractice, a malpractice which descended to a whole group of talented novelists of a younger generation, namely, the inartistic hurry with which, tempted by the prospect of an enormously high price, he produced book after book as if they had been so many articles of manufacture. In 1809, he had entered into business relations with a firm of printers and publishers of the name of Ballantyne, who printed and published the _Quarterly Review_ for him; after he began to write novels he actually became a partner in this firm, which was, unfortunately, a more enterprising than safe one. _Guy Mannering_ was written and printed in twenty-five days; and Scott was soon producing at the average rate of twelve volumes in a year; it was quite an ordinary thing for him to write forty printed pages in a morning. The sale corresponded to the enormous production; 10,000 copies of _Rob Roy_ were sold in one week; and the later novels were disposed of even faster. In the year 1822, 145,000 volumes of the novels, old and new, were issued. The prices Scott received increased with the circulation of his books. For the two first editions of the _Life of Napoleon_ he was paid £18,000, and his yearly receipts until 1826 were never less than £12,000. He spent his money in improving and enlarging his estate of Abbotsford, and in the erecting thereon of a castle-like mansion, where, with princely hospitality, he entertained