But over-exertion in the evening of life, and under circumstances too well calculated to weaken the elasticity of his spirits, and to destroy the pleasure which he used to feel in composition, broke his constitution and brought on premature old age. In the autumn of 1830 he retired from his office of Clerk of Session. In the following winter, symptoms of paralysis began to appear. Still he continued to labour until the summer of 1831, in the course of which mental exertion was strictly forbidden. He was advised to visit Italy in the following autumn, and even in his declining condition must have been gratified by the sympathy and the honour rendered to him. A passage to Malta in the Barham man-of-war was granted to him by the British Government; and at Rome and Naples he was received with honours rarely paid except to royal blood. But his desire to return to his native land became irrepressible; and he hurried homewards, taking the route by the Rhine, with a rapidity which proved very injurious. He reached London in nearly the last stage of physical and mental weakness. Still the love of his native land was strong in death, and after remaining some weeks in the metropolis, he was conveyed at his own earnest desire by sea to Leith, and reached Abbotsford, July 11. After lingering two months, almost without consciousness, in the last stage of his most afflictive malady, he expired, September 22, 1832. His body was laid in his family burial-place in the ruined abbey of Dryburgh on the Tweed. Throughout the kingdom his death was regarded like the loss of a friend; and the general admiration of his talents, respect for his conduct, and sympathy for his misfortunes, was shown by the favourable reception of a project for raising a subscription to discharge the incumbrances existing on the Abbotsford estate, and to preserve it by entail in Sir Walter’s family, as a lasting memorial of his genius. Scott’s works, in the last uniform edition, fill eighty-eight closely printed duodecimo volumes. Of these his poems occupy twelve, the novels forty-eight, the miscellaneous prose works twenty-eight. The Letters on Demonology, History of Scotland, and a few minor productions are not included herein, in consequence of the copyrights being vested in different hands. From his numerous unnamed works, we may select for mention his Border Antiquities, Picturesque Scenery of Scotland, his share in Weber and Jameson’s Illustrations of Northern Antiquities, Paul’s Letters, which contain the liveliest description ever given of the Battle of Waterloo, and three dramas, Halidon Hill, the Doom of Devorgoil, and the Auchindrane Tragedy. [Illustration: [View of Abbotsford.]]