temper was no longer what it had
been. He quarrelled with Ballantyne, partly for his depreciatory
criticism of _Count Robert of Paris_, partly for his growing tendency
to a mystic and strait-laced sort of dissent and his increasing
Liberalism. Even Mr. Laidlaw and Scott's children had much to bear.
But he struggled on even to the end, and did not consent to try the
experiment of a voyage and visit to Italy till his immediate work was
done. Well might Lord Chief Baron Shepherd apply to Scott Cicero's
description of some contemporary of his own, who "had borne adversity
wisely, who had not been broken by fortune, and who, amidst the
buffets of fate, had maintained his dignity." There was in Sir Walter,
I think, at least as much of the Stoic as the Christian. But Stoic or
Christian, he was a hero of the old, indomitable type. Even the last
fragments of his imaginative power were all turned to account by that
unconquerable will, amidst the discouragement of friends, and the
still more disheartening doubts of his own mind. Like the headland
stemming a rough sea, he was gradually worn away, but never crushed.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 51: Lockhart's _Life of Scott_, viii. 197.]

[Footnote 52: Lockhart's _Life of Scott_, viii. 203-4.]

[Footnote 53: Ibid., viii. 235.]

[Footnote 54: Lockhart's _Life of Scott_, viii. 238.]

[Footnote 55: viii. 277.]

[Footnote 56: viii. 347, 371, 381.]

[Footnote 57: Lockhart's _Life of Scott_, x. 11, 12.]

[Footnote 58: Lockhart's _Life of Scott_, x. 65-6.]

CHAPTER XVI.

THE LAST YEAR.

In the month of September, 1831, the disease of the brain which had
long been in existence must have made a considerable step in advance.
For the first time the illusion seemed to possess Sir Walter that he
had paid off all the debt for which he was liable, and that he was
once more free to give as his generosity prompted. Scott sent Mr.
Lockhart 50_l._ to save his grandchildren some slight inconvenience,
and told another of his correspondents that he had "put his decayed
fortune into as good a condition as he could desire." It was well,
therefore, that he had at last consented to try the effect of travel
on his health,--not that he could hope to arrest by it such a disease
as his, but that it diverted him from the most painful of all efforts,
that of trying anew the spell which had at last failed him, and
perceiving in the disappointed eyes of his old admirers that the magic
of his imagin