f his own age
forty-three to fifty-five), the actual time employed in their
composition being not more than a couple of months out of each year; and
during that time only the morning hours and spare minutes during the
professional day. "Though the first volume of 'Waverley' was begun long
ago, and actually lost for a time, yet the other two were begun and
finished between the 4th of June and the 1st of July, during all which I
attended my duty in court, and proceeded without loss of time or
hindrance of business."[52]

Few of the maxims for the enforcement of which, in "Modern Painters,"
long ago, I got the general character of a lover of paradox, are more
singular, or more sure, than the statement, apparently so encouraging to
the idle, that if a great thing can be done at all, it can be done
easily. But it is that kind of ease with which a tree blossoms after
long years of gathered strength, and all Scott's great writings were the
recreations of a mind confirmed in dutiful labor, and rich with organic
gathering of boundless resource.

Omitting from our count the two minor and ill-finished sketches of the
"Black Dwarf" and "Legend of Montrose," and, for a reason presently to
be noticed, the unhappy "St. Ronan's," the memorable romances of Scott
are eighteen, falling into three distinct groups, containing six each.

24. 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 forty-three and forty-eight. On the 8th of April,
1819 (he was forty-eight 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 woolen.'"[53] From this
time forward the brightness of joy and sincerity of inevitable humor,
which perfected the imagery of the earlier novels, are wholly absent,
except in the two short intervals of health unaccounta