of the most remarkable recorded in literary history. The main interruption was in 1815. All his patriotic feelings had been stirred to the uttermost by the concluding scenes of the war; and he went to France in August, visited Waterloo, saw the allies in Paris, met the Duke of Wellington and Lord Castlereagh, was courteously received by Blücher, and kissed by the hetman Platoff. For Wellington he had the highest admiration, and wondered that the hero should care for the author of a ‘few bits of novels.’ Scott's impressions on this tour were described by him in ‘Paul's Letters to his Kinsfolk’ (1815), and in a poem on the ‘Field of Waterloo,’ published in October 1815 for the benefit of soldiers' widows, and an admitted failure. His last poem of any length, ‘Harold the Dauntless,’ was published in January 1817, as by the author of ‘Triermain,’ and had, says Lockhart, ‘considerable success,’ but not such as to encourage him to further attempts in the same line.
The ‘Waverley Novels,’ on the contrary, had at once become the delight of all readers, even of those who, like Hazlitt, detested Scott from a political point of view. Scott had determined to be anonymous, and the secret was at first confided only to his publishers and to his friends Morritt and Erskine. In his preface of 1830, and in some letters of the time, Scott gives reasons for this decision which are scarcely convincing. The most intelligible is his dislike to be accepted as an author, and forced to talk about his own books in society. This fell in with his low estimate of literary reputation in general. He considered his writings chiefly as the means of supporting his position as a gentleman, and would rather be received as Scott of Abbotsford than the author of the ‘Waverley Novels.’ When writing his earlier books, as Lockhart shows, he had frankly consulted his friends; but as he became more of a professional author, he was less disposed to wear the character publicly. It is probable that his connection with the Ballantynes had an effect in this change. He began to take a publisher's point of view, and was afraid of making his name too cheap. Whatever his motives, he adhered to his anonymity, and in agreements with Constable introduced a clause that the publisher should be liable to a penalty of 2,000l. if the name of the author were revealed (ib. ch. xliii. and liv. pp. 388, 469). He says, in his preface, that he considered himself to be entitled to deny the authorship flatly if the question were put to him directly. It was reported that he had solemnly disavowed ‘Waverley’ to the prince regent, who entertained him at dinner in the spring of 1815. Scott, however, told Ballantyne that the question had not been put to him, though he evaded the acknowledgment when the regent proposed his health as the ‘author of Waverley’ (For a similar story see Smiles's John Murray, i. 474). From the first, the most competent readers guessed the truth. It was sufficiently intimated by Jeffrey in his review of ‘Waverley,’ and the constant use in the novels of his own experiences gave unmistakable evidence to all his familiars. Less intimate friends, such as Southey and Sydney Smith, speak without doubt of his authorship. The letters on the authorship of ‘Waverley’ by John Leycester Adolphus [q. v.] in 1821 gave a superfluous, though ingenious, demonstration of the fact. Scott countenanced a few rumours attributing the novels to others, especially to his brother, Thomas Scott, now in Canada. Thomas, he suggested, need not officiously reject the credit of the authorship. Murray believed this report in 1817; and a discovery of the same statement in a Canadian paper led a Mr. W. J. Fitzgerald to write a pamphlet in 1855 attributing the authorship (partly at least) to Thomas (see Notes and Queries, 1st ser. vols. i. and ii.).
Scott said that his first suggestion of novels intended to portray Scottish character came from Miss Edgeworth's Irish stories. He sent her a copy of ‘Waverley’ and warm compliments from the anonymous author. Scott's sympathetic reproduction of the national characteristics was of course combined with the power, which distinguished his novels from all previous works, of giving life to history and to the picturesque and vanishing forms of society. His ‘feudalism’ and toryism were other aspects of his intense interest in the old order broken down by the revolution. He was also pouring out the stores of anecdote and legend and the vivid impressions of the scenery which he had been imbibing from his early childhood while rambling through the country in close and friendly intercourse with all classes. Scott's personal charm, his combination of masculine sense with wide and generous sympathy, enabled him to attract an unprecedentedly numerous circle of readers to these almost impromptu utterances of a teeming imagination.
The first nine novels, in which these qualities are most conspicuous, appeared in five years; the last on 10 June 1819. ‘Waverley’ was followed on 24 Feb. 1815 by ‘Guy Mannering,’ the hero of which was at once
