quel to
Desdichado' (the modern development of Ivanhoe), in which a quite
monumental example of the kind of art in question will be found as a
leading illustration of this characteristic sentence, "See, good
Cerberus," said Sir Rupert, "_my hand has been struck off. You must make
me a hand of iron, one with springs in it, so that I can make it grasp a
dagger._" The text is also, as it professes to be, instructive; being
the ultimate degeneration of what I have above called the 'folly' of
_Ivanhoe_; for folly begets folly down, and down; and whatever Scott and
Turner did wrong has thousands of imitators--their wisdom none will so
much as hear, how much less follow!

In both of the Masters, it is always to be remembered that the evil and
good are alike conditions of literal _vision_: and therefore also,
inseparably connected with the state of the health. I believe the first
elements of all Scott's errors were in the milk of his consumptive
nurse, which all but killed him as an infant, L. i. 19--and was without
doubt the cause of the teething fever that ended in his lameness (L. i.
20). Then came (if the reader cares to know what I mean by Fors, let him
read the page carefully) the fearful accidents to his only sister, and
her death, L. i. 17; then the madness of his nurse, who planned his own
murder (21), then the stories continually told him of the executions at
Carlisle (24), his aunt's husband having seen them; issuing, he himself
scarcely knows how, in the unaccountable terror that came upon him at
the sight of statuary, 31--especially Jacob's ladder; then the murder of
Mrs. Swinton, and finally the nearly fatal bursting of the blood vessel
at Kelso, with the succeeding nervous illness, 65-67--solaced, while he
was being 'bled and blistered till he had scarcely a pulse left,' by
that history of the Knights of Malta--fondly dwelt on and realised by
actual modelling of their fortress, which returned to his mind for the
theme of its last effort in passing away.

[157] 'Se dit par denigrement, d'un chretien qui ne croit pas les dogmes
de sa religion.'--Fleming, vol. ii. p. 659.

[158] 'A son nom,' properly. The sentence is one of Victor Cherbuliez's,
in _Prosper Randoce_, which is full of other valuable ones. See the old
nurse's 'ici bas les choses vont de travers, comme un chien qui va a
vepres, p. 93; and compare Prosper's treasures, 'la petite Venus, et le
petit Christ d'ivoire,' p. 121; also Madame Brehanne's reques