His last years were spent in an heroic struggle to retrieve his lost fortunes. He wrote more novels, but without much zest or inspiration; he undertook other works, such as the voluminous _Life of Napoleon_, for which he was hardly fitted, but which brought him money in large measure. In four years he had repaid the greater part of his debt, but mind and body were breaking under the strain. When the end came, in 1832, he had literally worked himself to death. The murmur of the Tweed over its shallows, music that he had loved since childhood, was the last earthly sound of which he was conscious. The house of Abbotsford, for which he had planned and toiled, went into strange hands, and the noble family which he had hoped to found died out within a few years. Only his work remains, and that endures the wear of time and the tooth of criticism. THE POEMS OF SCOTT. Three good poems of Scott are _Marmion_, _The Lay of the Last Minstrel_ and _The Lady of the Lake_; three others, not so good, are _Rokeby_, _Vision of Don Roderick_ and _Lord of the Isles_. Among these _The Lady of the Lake_ is such a favorite that, if one were to question the tourists who annually visit the Trossachs, a surprisingly large number of them would probably confess that they were led not so much by love of natural beauty as by desire to visit "Fair Ellen's Isle" and other scenes which Scott has immortalized in verse. We may as well admit frankly that even the best of these poems is not first-class; that it shows careless workmanship, and is lacking in the finer elements of beauty and imagination. But Scott did not aim to create a work of beauty; his purpose was to tell a good story, and in that he succeeded. His _Lady of the Lake_, for example, has at least two virtues: it holds the reader's attention; and it fulfills the first law of poetry, which is to give pleasure. [Sidenote: QUALITY OF THE POEMS] Another charm of the poems, for young readers especially, is that they are simple, vigorous, easily understood. Their rapid action and flying verse show hardly a trace of conscious effort. Reading them is like sweeping downstream with a good current, no labor required save for steering, and attention free for what awaits us around the next bend. When the bend is passed, Scott has always something new and interesting: charming scenery, heroic adventure, picturesque incidents (such as the flight of the Fiery Cross to summon the clans), interesting fragments of folklore, and occasionally a ballad like "Lochinvar," or a song like "Bonnie Dundee," which stays with us as a happy memory long after the poem is forgotten.