of Jeanie Deans
have made her, of all Scott's characters, the dearest to her countrymen,
and the name of Jeanie was given to many children, in pious memory of the
blameless heroine. The foil to her, in the person of Effie, is not less
admirable. Among Scott's qualities was one rare among modern authors: he
had an affectionate toleration for his characters. If we compare Effie
with Hetty in "Adam Bede," this charming and genial quality of Scott's
becomes especially striking. Hetty and Dinah are in very much the same
situation and condition as Effie and Jeanie Deans. But Hetty is a
frivolous little animal, in whom vanity and silliness do duty for
passion: she has no heart: she is only a butterfly broken on the wheel of
the world. Doubtless there are such women in plenty, yet we feel that her
creator persecutes her, and has a kind of spite against her. This was
impossible to Scott. Effie has heart, sincerity, passion, loyalty,
despite her flightiness, and her readiness, when her chance comes, to
play the fine lady. It was distasteful to Scott to create a character not
human and sympathetic on one side or another. Thus his robber "of milder
mood," on Jeanie's journey to England, is comparatively a good fellow,
and the scoundrel Ratcliffe is not a scoundrel utterly. "'To make a Lang
tale short, I canna undertake the job. It gangs against my conscience.'
'Your conscience, Rat?' said Sharpitlaw, with a sneer, which the reader
will probably think very natural upon the occasion. 'Ou ay, sir,'
answered Ratcliffe, calmly, 'just my conscience; a body has a conscience,
though it may be ill wunnin at it. I think mine's as weel out o' the gate
as maist folk's are; and yet it's just like the noop of my elbow, it
whiles gets a bit dirl on a corner.'" Scott insists on leaving his worst
people in possession of something likeable, just as he cannot dismiss
even Captain Craigengelt without assuring us that Bucklaw made a
provision for his necessities. This is certainly a more humane way of
writing fiction than that to which we are accustomed in an age of
humanitarianism. Nor does Scott's art suffer from his kindliness, and
Effie in prison, with a heart to be broken, is not less pathetic than the
heartless Hetty, in the same condemnation.

As to her lover, Robertson, or Sir George Staunton, he certainly verges
on the melodramatic. Perhaps we know too much about the real George
Robertson, who was no heir to a title in disguise, but merely a "s