en. And as
most men perhaps would admit that a good deal of even the best part of
their nature is rather suppressed than expressed by the name by which
they are known in the world, Scott must have felt this in a far higher
degree, and probably regarded the manifold characters under which he
was known to society, as representing him in some respects more justly
than any individual name could have done. His mind ranged hither and
thither over a wide field--far beyond that of his actual
experience,--and probably ranged over it all the more easily for not
being absolutely tethered to a single class of associations by any
public confession of his authorship. After all, when it became
universally known that Scott was the only author of all these tales,
it may be doubted whether the public thought as adequately of the
imaginative efforts which had created them, as they did while they
remained in some doubt whether there was a multiplicity of agencies at
work, or only one. The uncertainty helped them to realize the many
lives which were really led by the author of all these tales, more
completely than any confession of the individual authorship could have
done. The shrinking of activity in public curiosity and wonder which
follows the final determination of such ambiguities, is very apt to
result rather in a dwindling of the imaginative effort to enter into
the genius which gave rise to them, than in an increase of respect for
so manifold a creative power.

When Scott wrote, such fertility as his in the production of novels
was regarded with amazement approaching to absolute incredulity. Yet
he was in this respect only the advanced-guard of a not
inconsiderable class of men and women who have a special gift for
pouring out story after story, containing a great variety of figures,
while retaining a certain even level of merit. There is more than one
novelist of the present day who has far surpassed Scott in the number
of his tales, and one at least of very high repute, who has, I
believe, produced more even within the same time. But though to our
larger experience, Scott's achievement, in respect of mere fertility,
is by no means the miracle which it once seemed, I do not think one of
his successors can compare with him for a moment in the ease and truth
with which he painted, not merely the life of his own time and
country--seldom indeed that of precisely his own time--but that of
days long past, and often too of scenes far di