which only carelessness or contempt in the worker for his task can adequately account. We shall presently have occasion to speak of him in his relation to the great contemporary writer to whose life and work his own work and life present so many interesting points of similarity and diversity; but we may here note that, in the glaringly disparate character of his output, the author of _The Provost_ is in absolute contrast to the author of _The Antiquary_. For, if Scott's work viewed as a whole be rarely of the very finest literary quality, its evenness within its own limits is on the other hand very striking indeed. For, of his twenty-seven novels, there are perhaps but three which fall perceptibly below the general level of excellence; whilst probably any one of at least as many as six or eight might by a quorum of competent judges be selected as the best of all. And hence, where in the case of other authors we are called on to read this masterpiece or those specimens, and, having done so, are held to have acquitted ourselves, in the case of Scott we cannot feel that we have done our duty till we have read through the Waverley Novels. How entirely different is it with Galt--where we find _The Omen_ occupying one shelf with _The Radical_, _The Annals of the Parish_ catalogued with _Lawrie Todd_, and _The Spaewife_ side by side with _The Covenanters_! And obviously it is in this inequality in its author's work--in the magnitude, that is, of the rubbish-heap in which he chose to secrete his jewels--that the explanation of the neglect, if not rather oblivion, into which the work last-named has fallen can alone be sought and found. For, once in the threescore years of his busy life, Galt did his best, consistently and on a large scale, with the pen; and that once was in the novel of _Ringan Gilhaize, or the Covenanters_. What is more--however lamentably he may appear in general to lack the faculty of self-criticism--he knew when he had done his best, and among all his books this one remained his favourite. But a man has to pay for artistic as he has for moral delinquencies, and it would seem that the penalty of many a careless tome has been exacted in the obscuration of one of the finest and truest of historical romances in our language.[2] A word or two as to the genesis and character of the book which we have ventured thus to describe may not be out of place as preface to our endeavour to obtain for it a second hearing.