ls and poems alone stretch away into just sixty
volumes in Cadell's edition; and this is only the beginning. At this
very moment two new editions (one of which, at least, is
indispensable) are unfolding their magnificent lengths, and report
says that Messrs. Hodder and Stoughton already project a third, with
introductory essays by Mr. Barrie. Then the Miscellaneous Prose Works
by that untiring hand extend to some twenty-eight or thirty volumes.
And when Scott stops, his biographer and his commentators begin, and
all with like liberal notions of space and time. Nor do they deceive
themselves. We take all they give, and call for more. Three years ago,
and fifty-eight from the date of Scott's death, his Journal was
published; and although Lockhart had drawn upon it for one of the
fullest biographies in the language, the little that Lockhart had left
unused was sufficient to make its publication about the most important
literary event of the year 1890.

And now Mr. David Douglas, the publisher of the "Journal," gives us in
two volumes a selection from the familiar letters preserved at
Abbotsford. The period covered by this correspondence is from 1797,
the year of Sir Walter's marriage, to 1825, when the "Journal"
begins--"covered," however, being too large a word for the first seven
years, which are represented by seven letters only; it is only in 1806
that we start upon something like a consecutive story. Mr. Douglas
speaks modestly of his editorial work. "I have done," he says, "little
more than arrange the correspondence in chronological order, supplying
where necessary a slight thread of continuity by annotation and
illustration." It must be said that Mr. Douglas has done this
exceedingly well. There is always a note where a note is wanted, and
never where information would be superfluous. On the taste and
judgment of his selection one who has not examined the whole mass of
correspondence at Abbotsford can only speak on _a priori_ grounds. But
it is unlikely that the writer of these exemplary footnotes has made
many serious mistakes in compiling his text.

Man's perennial and pathetic curiosity about virtue has no more
striking example than the public eagerness to be acquainted with every
detail of Scott's life. For what, as a mere story, is that life?--a
level narrative of many prosperous years; a sudden financial crash;
and the curtain falls on the struggle of a tired and dying gentleman
to save his honor. Scott was