r-Eachin is rather a thing of shreds and patches, and the
entire episode of Father Clement and the heresy business is dragged in
with singularly little initial excuse, valid connection, or final
result.

We have unluckily no diary for the last half of 1828, after Scott
returned from a long stay with the Lockharts in London, and we thus hear
little of the beginnings of the next novel, _Anne of Geierstein_. When
the _Journal_ begins again, complaints are heard from Ballantyne.
Alterations (which Scott always loathed, and which certainly are
detestable things) became or were thought necessary, and when the poor
_Maid of the Mist_ at length appeared in May 1829, she was dismissed by
her begetter very unkindly, as 'not a good girl like the other
Annes'--his daughter and her cousin, _fille de Thomas_, who were living
with him. The book was not at all ill received, but Lockhart is
apologetic about it, and it has been the habit of criticism since to
share the opinions of 'Aldiborontiphoscophormio.'[45] I cannot agree with
this, and should put _Anne of Geierstein_--as a mere romance and not
counting the personal touches which exalt _Redgauntlet_ and the
Introduction to the _Chronicles_--on a level with anything, and above
most things, later than _The Pirate_. Its chief real fault is not so
much bad construction--it is actually more, not less, well knit than
_The Fair Maid of Perth_,--as the too great predominance of merely
episodic and unnecessary things and persons, like the _Vehmgericht_ and
King's Rene's court. Its merits are manifold. The opening storm and
Arthur's rescue by Anne, as well as the quarrel with Rudolf, are
excellent; the journey (though too much delayed by the said Rudolf's
tattlings), with the sojourn at Grafslust and the adventures at La
Ferette, ranks with Scott's many admirable journeys, and high among
them; Queen Margaret is nobly presented (I wish Shakespeare, Lancastrian
that he was, had had the chance of versifying the scene where she flings
the feather and the rose to the winds, as a pendant to 'I called thee
then vain shadow of my fortune'); and not only Philipson's rattling peal
of thunder to wake Charles the Bold from his stupor, but the Duke's
final scenes, come well up to the occasion. Earlier, Scott would not
have made Rene quite such a mere old fool, and could have taken the
slight touch of pasteboard and sawdust out of the Black Priest of St.
Paul's. But these are small matters, and the whole m