Just as the last half of the eighteenth century may be said to group itself round Hume, so the first half of the nineteenth has Scott for its central figure. I have spoken of his birthplace in the College Wynd. In 1825 he pointed out its site to Robert Chambers. “It would have been more profitable to have preserved it,” said Chambers in a neat compliment to Scott’s rapidly growing fame. “Ay, ay,” said Sir Walter, “that is very well, but I am afraid that I should require to be dead first, and that would not have been so comfortable, you know.” Thus, with good sense and humour, Scott turned aside the eulogium which perhaps he thought too strong. How modest he was! He frankly, and justly, put himself as a poet below Byron and Burns, and as for Shakespeare, “he was not worthy to loose his brogues.” His sense and good-nature helped to make him popular with his fellows. Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, was a possible exception. Scott did him good, yet after Scott’s death he wrote some nasty things. In truth, he had an unhappy nature, since he was somewhat rough to others and yet abnormally sensitive. Lockhart tells a story of Hogg’s visit to Scott’s house in Castle Street, where he was asked to dinner. Mrs. Scott was not well, and was lying on a sofa. The Shepherd seized another sofa, wheeled it towards her, and stretched himself at full length on it. “I thought I could never do wrong to copy the lady of the house.” His hands, we are told, had marks of recent sheep-shearing, of which the chintz bore legible traces; but the guest noted not this; he ate freely, and drank freely, and talked freely; he became gradually more and more familiar; from “Mr. Scott” he advanced to “Shirra” and thence to “Scott,” “Walter,” “Wattie,” until at supper he fairly convulsed the whole party by addressing Mrs. Scott as “Charlotte.” I think, however, that Scott was too much of a gentleman ever to have told this story. “The Scorpion,” as the _Chaldean Manuscript_ named Lockhart, had many good qualities, but was, after all, a bit of a “superior person.”