"_The Lord of the Isles_ was by far the least popular of the series, and Mr. Scott was very prompt at making such discoveries. In about a week after its publication he took me into his library, and asked me what the people were saying about _The Lord of the Isles_. I hesitated, much in the same manner that Gil Blas might be supposed to do when a similar question was put by the Archbishop of Grenada, but he very speedily brought the matter to a point--'Come, speak out, my good fellow, what has put it in your head to be on ceremony with me? But the result is in one word--disappointment!' My silence admitted his inference to its fullest extent. His countenance certainly did look rather blank for a few seconds (for it is a singular fact, that before the public, or rather the booksellers, gave _their_ decision he no more knew whether he had written well or ill, than whether a die, which he threw out of a box, was to turn out a sise or an ace). However, he almost instantly resumed his spirits and expressed his wonder rather that his popularity had lasted so long, than that it should have given way at last. At length, with a perfectly cheerful manner, he said, 'Well, well, James, but you know we must not droop--for you know we can't and won't give over--we must just try something else, and the question is, what it's to be?' Nor was it any wonder he spoke thus, for he could not fail to be unconsciously conscious, if I dare use such a term, of his own gigantic, and as yet undeveloped, powers, and was somewhat under forty years old. I am by no means sure whether he then alluded to _Waverley_, as if he had mentioned it to me for the first time, for my memory has greatly failed me touching this, or whether he alluded to it, as in fact appears to have been the case, as having been commenced and laid aside several years before, but I well recollect that he consulted me with his usual openness and candour respecting his probability of succeeding as a novelist, and I confess my expectations were not very sanguine. He saw this and said, 'Well, I don't see why I should not succeed as well as other people. Come, faint heart never won fair lady--let us try.' I remember when the work was put into my hands, I could not get myself to think much, of the Waverley Honour scenes, but to my shame be it spoken, when he had reached the exquisite scenes of Scottish manners at Tully-Veolan, I thought them, and pronounced them, vulgar! When the success of the book so utterly knocked me down as a man of taste, all that the good-natured Author observed was, 'Well, I really thought you might be wrong about the Scotch. Why, Burns had already attracted universal attention to all about Scotland, and I confess I could not see why I should not be able to keep the flame alive, merely because I wrote in prose in place of rhyme.'"--_Memorandum_.