for the manuscript of "Reginald Dalton," and "Woodstock" brought to Scott's creditors the fabulous sum of eight thousand pounds.
For with Sir Walter flowered the golden age of English fiction. Fortune and fame came smiling at his beck, and the great reading world confessed itself better and happier for his genius. Then it was that the bookshops were besieged by clamorous crowds when a new Waverly novel was promised to the public. Then Lord Holland sat up all night to finish "Old Mortality." Then the excitement over the Great Unknown reached fever heat, and the art of the novelist gained its absolute ascendency, an ascendency unbroken in our day, and likely to remain unbroken for many years to come. At present, every child that learns its letters makes one more story-reader in the world, and the chances are it will make one more story-writer to help deluge the world with fiction. Novels, it has been truly said, are the only things that can never be too dear or too cheap for the market. The beautiful and costly editions of Miss Austen and Scott and Thackeray compete for favor with marvelously cheap editions of
