ord, from all quarters, greatly added to the expenses which the
hospitable owner had to meet; but the unbounded popularity of his
novels appeared to him and to his publishers a never-failing source of
funds; and the Messrs. Constable accepted his drafts, to the amount of
many thousand pounds, in favor of works which were not only unwritten,
but even unimagined. Unfortunately, Scott, in return, could not refuse
to indorse the drafts of his publishers, and thus an amount of
liabilities was incurred which would appear quite inexplicable, if
experience had not shown that the dangerous facilities of
accommodation bills lead men on to an extent that they never discover
until the crash comes. In the great commercial crisis of 1825
Constables' house stopped payment; the assets proved to be very
trifling in comparison with the debts, and Sir Walter Scott was found
to be responsible to the startling amount of one hundred thousand
pounds!

His conduct on this occasion was truly noble; he put up his house and
furniture in Edinburgh to auction, delivered over his personal
effects--plate, books, furniture, etc.--to be held in trust for his
creditors (the estate itself had been settled on his eldest son when
he married), and bound himself to discharge annually a certain amount
of the liabilities of the insolvent firm. He then, with his
characteristic energy, set about the performance of his herculean
task. He took cheap lodgings, abridged his usual enjoyments and
recreations, and labored harder than ever. The death of his beloved
lady increased the gloom which the change of circumstances produced,
but though he sorrowed he did not relax his exertions. One of his
first tasks was the "Life of Bonaparte," which he completed in the
short space of thirteen months. For this he received from the
publishers the sum of L14,000, and such was its great circulation that
they had no reason to repent of their bargain. In the same year that
this work appeared, he took an opportunity of publicly avowing his
authorship of the Waverley Novels, declaring "that their merits, if
they had any, and their faults were entirely imputable to himself."

Sir Walter Scott's celebrity made everything that he produced
acceptable to the public. He did not allow these favorable impressions
to fade for want of exercise, and the list of the works, great and
small, which he produced to satisfy his creditors, is an unexampled
instance of successful labors. No one of the