m reading it
over and over again,--as we read "Don Quixote," or the dramas of
Shakspeare, of whose infinite variety we never tire. Measured by this
test, the novels of Sir Walter Scott are among the foremost works of
fiction which have appeared in our world. They will not all retain their
popularity from generation to generation, like "Don Quixote" or "The
Pilgrim's Progress" or "The Vicar of Wakefield;" but these are single
productions of their authors, while not a few of Scott's many novels are
certainly still read by cultivated people,--if not with the same
interest they excited when first published, yet with profit and
admiration. They have some excellencies which are immortal,--elevation
of sentiment, chivalrous regard for women, fascination of narrative
(after one has waded through the learned historical introductory
chapters), the absence of exaggeration, the vast variety of characters
introduced and vividly maintained, and above all the freshness and
originality of description, both of Nature and of man. Among the
severest and most bigoted of New England Puritans, none could find
anything corrupting or demoralizing in his romances; whereas Byron and
Bulwer were never mentioned without a shudder, and even Shakspeare was
locked up in book-cases as unfit for young people to read, and not
particularly creditable for anybody to own. The unfavorable comments
which the most orthodox ever made upon Scott were as to the
repulsiveness of the old Covenanters, as he described them, and his
sneers at Puritan perfections. Scott, however, had contempt, not for the
Puritans, but for many of their peculiarities,--especially for their
cant when it degenerated into hypocrisy.

One thing is certain, that no works of fiction have had such universal
popularity both in England and America for so long a period as the
Waverley Novels. Scott reigned as the undisputed monarch of the realm of
fiction and romance for twenty-five years. He gave undiminished
entertainment to an entire generation--and not that merely, but
instruction--in his historical novels, although his views were not
always correct,--as whose ever are? He who could charm millions of
readers, learned and unlearned, for a quarter of a century must have
possessed remarkable genius. Indeed, he was not only the central figure
in English literature for a generation, but he was regarded as
peculiarly original. Another style of novels may obtain more passing
favor with modern rea