pt is imputed by Mr. Lockhart in some degree to
the habit of mystery which had grown upon Scott during his secret
partnership with the Ballantynes; but in this he seems to be
confounding two very different phases of Scott's character. No doubt
he was, as a professional man, a little ashamed of his commercial
speculation, and unwilling to betray it. But he was far from ashamed
of his literary enterprise, though it seems that he was at first very
anxious lest a comparative failure, or even a mere moderate success,
in a less ambitious sphere than that of poetry, should endanger the
great reputation he had gained as a poet. That was apparently the
first reason for secrecy. But, over and above this, it is clear that
the mystery stimulated Scott's imagination and saved him trouble as
well. He was obviously more free under the veil--free from the
liability of having to answer for the views of life or history
suggested in his stories; but besides this, what was of more
importance to him, the slight disguise stimulated his sense of humour,
and gratified the whimsical, boyish pleasure which he always had in
acting an imaginary character. He used to talk of himself as a sort of
Abou Hassan--a private man one day, and acting the part of a monarch
the next--with the kind of glee which indicated a real delight in the
change of parts, and I have little doubt that he threw himself with
the more gusto into characters very different from his own, in
consequence of the pleasure it gave him to conceive his friends
hopelessly misled by this display of traits, with which he supposed
that they could not have credited him even in imagination. Thus
besides relieving him of a host of compliments which he did not enjoy,
and enabling him the better to evade an ill-bred curiosity, the
disguise no doubt was the same sort of fillip to the fancy which a
mask and domino or a fancy dress are to that of their wearers. Even in
a disguise a man cannot cease to be himself; but he can get rid of his
improperly "imputed" righteousness--often the greatest burden he has
to bear--and of all the expectations formed on the strength, as Mr.
Clough says,--

"Of having been what one has been,
What one thinks one is, or thinks that others suppose one."

To some men the freedom of this disguise is a real danger and
temptation. It never could have been so to Scott, who was in the main
one of the simplest as well as the boldest and proudest of m