s_, the memorable romances of Scott
are eighteen, falling into three distinct groups, containing six each.

The first group is distinguished from the other two by characters of
strength and felicity which never more appeared after Scott was struck
down by his terrific illness in 1819. It includes _Waverley_, _Guy
Mannering_, _The Antiquary_, _Rob Roy_, _Old Mortality_, and _The Heart
of Midlothian_.

The composition of these occupied the mornings of his happiest days,
between the ages of 43 and 48. On the 8th of April, 1819 (he was 48 on
the preceding 15th of August) he began for the first time to
dictate--being unable for the exertion of writing--_The Bride of
Lammermuir_, 'the affectionate Laidlaw beseeching him to stop dictating,
when his audible suffering filled every pause. "Nay, Willie," he
answered "only see that the doors are fast. I would fain keep all the
cry as well as all the wool to ourselves; but as for giving over work,
that can only be when I am in woollen."'[166] From this time forward the
brightness of joy and sincerity of inevitable humour, which perfected
the imagery of the earlier novels, are wholly absent, except in the two
short intervals of health unaccountably restored, in which he wrote
_Redgauntlet_ and _Nigel_.

It is strange, but only a part of the general simplicity of Scott's
genius, that these revivals of earlier power were unconscious, and that
the time of extreme weakness in which he wrote _St. Ronan's Well_, was
that in which he first asserted his own restoration.

It is also a deeply interesting characteristic of his noble nature that
he never gains anything by sickness; the whole man breathes or faints
as one creature; the ache that stiffens a limb chills his heart, and
every pang of the stomach paralyses the brain. It is not so with
inferior minds, in the workings of which it is often impossible to
distinguish native from narcotic fancy, and throbs of conscience from
those of indigestion. Whether in exaltation or languor, the colours of
mind are always morbid, which gleam on the sea for the 'Ancient
Mariner,' and through the casements on 'St. Agnes' Eve;' but Scott is at
once blinded and stultified by sickness; never has a fit of the cramp
without spoiling a chapter, and is perhaps the only author of vivid
imagination who never wrote a foolish word but when he was ill.

It remains only to be noticed on this point that any strong natural
excitement, affecting the deeper springs