But the list of works in which his poetical genius shone forth, continued rapidly to increase amidst his multiplicity of other avocations. From the summer of 1804 till that of 1812, the spring and autumnal vacations of the court were spent by him and his family at Ashestiel, a small mansion romantically overhanging the Tweed some miles above Melrose, and rented from one of the poet's kinsmen. In this beautiful retreat, at intervals during twelve months, was chiefly composed the magnificent poem of Marmion, which was published in the beginning of 1808. At the same place, likewise, in 1805, were composed the opening chapters of a novel which, on the disapproval of one of the author's critical friends, was thrown aside and not resumed for years. Scott's commercial engagements must now again be adverted to. In the year 1808 he took a part, perhaps as suggester, certainly as a zealous promoter, of a scheme which terminated in the establishment of the Quarterly Review in London, as a political and literary counterpoise to the Edinburgh Review, the advocate of Whig opinions. But the poet had other than political grounds for embarking in this opposition. He had seriously quarrelled with the firm of Constable and Company, the publishers of the Edinburgh Review, and of several of his own earlier works; and his wish to check the enterprising head of that house in his attempts to obtain a monopoly of Scottish literature, is openly avowed, in Scott's correspondence at the time, as one of his principal motives for framing another scheme. His plan, as far as it was explained either to the public or to his own friends, amounted only to this: That a new publishing house should be set up in Edinburgh, under the management of John Ballantyne, a younger brother of James; and that this firm, with the acknowledged patronage of Scott and his friends, should engage in a series of extensive literary undertakings, including, amongst others, the annual publication of a historical and literary Register, conducted on Tory principles. But, unfortunately both for Scott's peace of mind, and ultimately also for his worldly fortunes, there was here, as in his previously formed connection with the same family, an undivulged secret. The profits of the printing-house had been large; Scott's territorial ambition had been growing faster than his prospect of being able to feed it; and these causes, inextricably mixed up with pique towards Constable, and kindliness for his Kelso proteges, led him into an entanglement which at length ruined both himself and his associates. By the contract of the publishing house of John Ballantyne and Company, executed in May, 1808, Scott became a secret partner to the extent of one third. The unhappy issue of this affair will force itself on our notice at a later stage. In the mean time we see him prosecuting for some time his career of poetical success. The Lady of the Lake, published in 1810, was followed by the Vision of Don Roderick in 1811; by Rokeby in 1812; and by the Bridal of Triermain, which came out anonymously in 1813. His poems may be said to have closed in 1815 with the Lord of the Isles and the Field of Waterloo ; since Harold the Dauntless, in 1817, appeared without the writer's name, and the dramatic poems of 1822 and 1830 are quite unworthy of him. In the midst of these poetical employments he made his second and last great appearance as an editor and commentator of English classics, by publishing, in 1814, his edition of Swift. But from 1815 till 1825, Scott's name ceased almost entirely to be before the public as an avowed author; and for those who chose to believe that he was not the writer of the Waverley Novels it must have been a question not a little puzzling, if it ever occurred to them, how this man, who wrote with such ease, and seemed to take such pleasure in writing, was now occupying his hours of leisure. A few articles in the Quarterly Review, such works as Paul's Letters, and annotations in occasional editions of ancient tracts, accounted but poorly for his time during ten years. About 1813 and 1814, his popularity as a poet was sensibly on the decline, partly from causes inherent in his later poems themselves, and partly from extraneous causes, among which a prominent place belongs to the appearance of Byron. No man was more quicksighted than Scott in perceiving the ebb of popular favour; and no man better prepared to meet the reverse with firmness. He put in serious execution a threat which he had playfully uttered to one of his own family even before the publication of the Lady of the Lake. "If I fail now," said he, "I will write prose for life." And in writing prose, his genius discovered, on its first attempt, a field in which it earned triumphs even more splendid than its early ones in the domain of poetry. The chapters of fiction begun at Ashestiel in 1805, which had already been resumed and again thrown aside, were once more taken up, and the work was finished with miraculous rapidity; the second and third volumes having been written during the afternoons of three summer weeks in 1814. The novel appeared in July of that year, under the title of Waverley, and its success from the first was unequivocal and unparalleled. In the midst of occupations which would have taken away all leisure from other men, the press poured forth novels and romances in a succession so rapid as to deprive of some part of its absurdity one of the absurd suppositions of the day, namely, that more persons than one were concerned in their production. Guy Mannering, the second of the series, in 1815, was followed in 1816 by the An tiquary and the First Series of the Tales of My Landlord. Rob Roy appeared in 1817; the Second Series of the Tales in 1818; and in 1819 the Third Series and Ivanhoe. Two romances a year now seemed to be expected as the due of the public. The year 1820 gave them the Monastery and the Abbot: 1821, Kenilworth and the Pirate; the Fortunes of Nigel, coming out alone in 1822, was followed in 1823 by no fewer than three works of fiction, Peveril of the Peak, Quentin Durward, and St. Ronan's Well; and the comparatively scanty number of novels in 1824 and 1825, which produced respectively only Redgauntlet and the Tales of the Crusaders, is accounted for by the fact that the author was engaged in preparing a large historical work. It is impossible even to touch on the many interesting details which Scott's personal history presents during these brilliant years; but it is indispensable to say, that his dream of territorial acquisition was realized with a splendour which, a few years before, he himself could not have hoped for. The first step was taken in 1811, by the purchase of a small farm of a hundred acres on the banks of the Tweed, which received the name of Abbotsford, and in a few years grew, by new purchases, into a large estate. The modest dwelling first planned on this little manor, with its two spare bed-rooms and its plain appurtenances, |