the German, of a similar
class. On his horseback trips through the border, where he studied the
primitive manners of the Liddesdale people, and took down old ballads
from the recitation of ancient dames and cottagers, he amassed the
materials for his _Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border_, 1802. But the
first of his original poems was the _Lay of the Last Minstrel_, published
in 1805, and followed, in quick succession, by _Marmion_, the _Lady of
the Lake_, _Rokeby_, the _Lord of the Isles_, and a volume of ballads and
lyrical pieces, all issued during the years 1806-1814. The popularity
won by this series of metrical romances was immediate and wide-spread.
Nothing so fresh, or so brilliant, had appeared in English poetry for
nearly two centuries. The reader was hurried along through scenes of
rapid action, whose effect was heightened by wild landscapes and
picturesque manners. The pleasure was a passive one. There was no deep
thinking to perplex, no subtler beauties to pause upon; the feelings were
stirred pleasantly, but not deeply; the effect was on the surface. The
spell employed was novelty--or, at most, wonder--and the chief emotion
aroused was breathless interest in the progress of the story. Carlyle
said that Scott's genius was _in extenso_, {247} rather than _in
intenso_, and that its great praise was its healthiness. This is true of
his verse, but not altogether so of his prose, which exhibits deeper
qualities. Some of Scott's most perfect poems, too, are his shorter
ballads, like _Jock o' Hazeldean_, and _Proud Maisie is in the Wood_,
which have a greater intensity and compression than his metrical tales.

From 1814 to 1831 Scott wrote and published the _Waverley_ novels, some
thirty in number; if we consider the amount of work done, the speed with
which it was done, and the general average of excellence maintained,
perhaps the most marvelous literary feat on record. The series was
issued anonymously, and takes its name from the first number, _Waverley,
or 'Tis Sixty Years Since_. This was founded upon the rising of the
clans, in 1745, in support of the Young Pretender, Charles Edward Stuart,
and it revealed to the English public that almost foreign country which
lay just across their threshold, the Scottish Highlands. The _Waverley_
novels remain, as a whole, unequaled as historical fiction, although,
here and there a single novel, like George Eliot's _Romola_, or
Thackeray's _Henry Esmond_, or King