f volumes; but, his
imagination once kindled upon any theme, he could not but pour himself
out freely--so that notion was soon abandoned.

{p.135} CHAPTER XXXVIII.

Harold the Dauntless Published. -- Scott Aspires to Be a
Baron of the Exchequer. -- Letter to the Duke of Buccleuch
Concerning Poachers, etc. -- First Attack of Cramp in the
Stomach. -- Letters to Morritt, Terry, and Mrs. Maclean
Clephane. -- Story of the Doom of Devorgoil. -- John
Kemble's Retirement from the Stage. -- William Laidlaw
Established at Kaeside. -- Novel of Rob Roy Projected. --
Letter to Southey on the Relief of the Poor, etc. -- Letter
to Lord Montagu on Hogg's Queen's Wake, and on the Death of
Frances, Lady Douglas.

1817.

Within less than a month, The Black Dwarf and Old Mortality were
followed by "Harold the Dauntless, by the author of The Bridal of
Triermain." This poem had been, it appears, begun several years back;
nay, part of it had been actually printed before the appearance of
Childe Harold, though that circumstance had escaped the author's
remembrance when he penned, in 1830, his Introduction to The Lord of
the Isles; for he there says, "I am still astonished at my having
committed the gross error of selecting the very name which Lord Byron
had made so famous." The volume was published by Messrs. Constable,
and had, in those booksellers' phrase, "considerable success." It has
never, however, been placed on a level with Triermain; and though it
contains many vigorous pictures, and splendid verses, and here and
there some happy humor, the confusion and harsh transitions {p.136}
of the fable, and the dim rudeness of character and manners, seem
sufficient to account for this inferiority in public favor. It is not
surprising that the author should have redoubled his aversion to the
notion of any more serious performances in verse. He had seized on an
instrument of wider compass, and which, handled with whatever
rapidity, seemed to reveal at every touch treasures that had hitherto
slept unconsciously within him. He had thrown off his fetters, and
might well go forth rejoicing in the native elasticity of his
strength.

It is at least a curious coincidence in literary history, that, as
Cervantes, driven from the stage of Madrid by the success of Lope de
Vega, threw himself into prose romance, and produced, at the moment
when the world considered him as silenced forever, the