eady
with good advice to young men who sought his help. Thus he encouraged
Kirke White, Herbert Knowles, and Dusantoy, all of whom died young and
full of promise. He not only helped them with advice and encouragement,
but with money; and his timely assistance rescued the sister of
Chatterton from absolute want. And thus he worked on nobly and
unselfishly to the last--finding happiness and joy in the pursuit of
letters--"not so learned as poor, not so poor as proud, not so proud as
happy." These were his own words.

The most touching story in Sir Walter Scott's life, is the manner in
which he conducted himself after the failure of the publishing house of
Constable and Co., with which he had become deeply involved. He had
built Abbotsford, become a laird, was sheriff of his county, and thought
himself a rich man; when suddenly the Constable firm broke down, and he
found himself indebted to the world more than a hundred thousand pounds.
"It is very hard," he said, when the untoward news reached him, "thus to
lose all the labour of a lifetime, and to be made a poor man at last.
But if God grant me health and strength for a few years longer, I have
no doubt that I shall redeem it all." Everybody thought him a ruined
man, and he almost felt himself to be so. But his courage never gave
way. When his creditors proposed to him a composition, his sense of
honour forbade his listening to them. "No, gentlemen," he replied; "Time
and I against any two." Though the debts had been contracted by others,
he had made himself legally responsible for them; and, strong in his
principle of integrity, he determined, if he could, to pay them off to
the last farthing. And he set himself to do it: but it cost him his
life.

He parted with his town house and furniture, delivered over his personal
effects to be held in trust for his creditors, and bound himself to
discharge a certain amount of his liabilities annually. This he did by
undertaking new literary works, some of them of great magnitude, the
execution of which, though they enabled him to discharge a large portion
of his debt, added but little to his reputation. One of his first tasks
was his "Life of Napoleon Buonaparte," in nine volumes, which he wrote,
in the midst of pain, sorrow, and ruin, in about thirteen
months,--receiving for it about fourteen thousand pounds. Even though
struck by paralysis, he went on writing until in about four years he had
discharged about two-thirds of the