me of their favourite Waverley novel, and all, when the
papers were compared, had written "St. Ronan's." Sydney Smith, writing
to Constable on Dec. 28, 1823, described the new story as "far the best
that has appeared for some time. Every now and then there is some
mistaken or overcharged humour--but much excellent delineation of
character, the story very well told, and the whole very interesting.
Lady Binks, the old landlady, and Touchwood are all very good. Mrs.
Blower particularly so. So are MacTurk and Lady Penelope. I wish he
would give his people better names; Sir Bingo Binks is quite
ridiculous.... The curtain should have dropped on finding Clara's
glove. Some of the serious scenes with Clara and her brother are very
fine: the knife scene masterly. In her light and gay moments Clara is
very vulgar; but Sir Walter always fails in well-bred men and women, and
yet who has seen more of both? and who, in the ordinary intercourse of
society, is better bred? Upon the whole, I call this a very successful
exhibition."

We have seldom found Sydney Smith giving higher praise, and nobody can
deny the justice of the censure with which it is qualified. Scott
himself explains, in his Introduction, how, in his quest of novelty, he
invaded modern life, and the domain of Miss Austen. Unhappily he proved
by example the truth of his own opinion that he could do "the big
bow-wow strain" very well, but that it was not his _celebrare domestica
facta_. Unlike George Sand, Sir Walter had humour abundantly, but, as
the French writer said of herself, he was wholly destitute of _esprit_.

We need not linger over definition of these qualities; but we must
recognise, in Scott, the absence of lightness of touch, of delicacy in
the small sword-play of conversation. In fencing, all should be done,
the masters tell us, with the fingers. Scott works not even with the
wrist, but with the whole arm. The two-handed sword, the old claymore,
are his weapons, not the rapier. This was plain enough in the
word-combats of Queen Mary and her lady gaoler in Loch Leven. Much more
conspicuous is the "swashing blow" in the repartee of "St. Ronan's." The
insults lavished on Lady Binks are violent and cruel; even Clara Mowbray
taunts her. Now Lady Binks is in the same parlous case as the
postmistress who dreed penance "for ante-nup," as Meg Dods says in an
interrupted harangue, and we know that, to the author's mind, Clara
Mowbray had no right to throw stones. Al