stories. Mr. Crosbie's haunts at Edinburgh were those of the legal gentlemen of his time, -"those obscure wynds or alleys leading down from the High Street, which, since the erection of the New Town have been chiefly inhabited by the lower classes of society," such as Advocate's Close, Writer's Close, Lady Stair's Close, and the West Bow.

As stated at the close of chapter xii., Scott wrote this wonderful novel during about six weeks before and after Christmas, 1814, and immediately published it. His rapidity of composition was only rivalled by the excellence of the work done. Mr. John Ruskin, in analyzing qualities of greatness, says, "Where the ease [of execution] is manifest, as in Scott, Turner, and Tintoret; and the thing done is very noble, it is a strong reason for placing the men above those who confessedly work with great pains. Scott, writing his chapter or two before breakfast · not retouching,-... [is] instantly to be set above men who confessedly have spent the day over the work, and think the hours well spent if it has been a little mended between sunrise and sunset." Again, of the superiority of creative to sentimental literature, Mr. Ruskin says, though "it may be as long before we have another In Memoriam as another Guy Mannering, I unhesitatingly receive as a greater manifestation of power the right invention of a few sentences spoken by Pleydell and Mannering across their supper-table, than the most tender and passionate melodies of the self-examining verse." [Modern Painters, iii. xvi.]

Originals of several characters in this novel, other than those already named, can be identified perhaps as readily as originals of their haunts. One Jean Gordon has been considered Meg Merrilies, — one of the most extensively known and oftenest dramatized of Scott's characters. Mr. James Sanson, of Berwickshire, is said to have shown a very exact resemblance to Dominie Sampson, who strides with such "prodigious" reality along the eventful chapters and the weird fields of "Guy Mannering." Two or three persons are said to have been the original of Dandie Dinmont. One of these was Archibald, brother of Mungo Park, the well-known traveller in Africa: another was Mr. James Davidson of Hindlee. He possessed numerous dogs named Pepper and Mustard, Auld and Young, Big and Little, like Dandie's canine darlings. Mr. Dinmont is, however, probably a composite character. Mr. Robert Chambers has happily supplied so full information relating to these several originals, that more need not be given here.

The temptations to prolong this chapter are manifold; but the amount of sketching to be compressed into nine and forty others, its companions, gives warning of necessary brevity and conclusion. And we may turn from a walk on the heights of Raeberry, or near the Crooks of Dee, as we may close a reading or thought of "Guy Mannering" anywhere, with the gypsy's prophetic words, that haunt the novel, and both foretell and fulfil its story, that come to mind when we read its printed page, or when we breathe the fresh sea-air of its Galwegian scenes:—

"The dark shall be light,

And the wrong made right,

When Bertram's right and Bertram's might

Shall meet on Ellangowan's height!"

And the Great Magician happily assures us how light at length prevailed over darkness, and right with its might over wrong; and how well, on Ellangowan's height, ended the calculations of The Astrologer, and flourished the fortunes of Bertram and of Guy Mannering.

XXI.

"ROB ROY."

GILSLAND, SCOTT'S GLASGOW, AND THE "ROB ROY COUNTRY."

Fourth Novel of the Series, written in 1817; Published Dec. 31, 1817; Author's age, 46 Time of Action, 1715, — mostly during the Rebellion.

THE

HERE is a peculiar fascination investing this story and its characters, and scenery that can be associated with them. Indeed, few of Scott's works have more readers, or so abound in picturesque incidents and persons, nearly all represented in romantic places, many of which can now be identified, and visited with pleasure; for this is the story of curious, old, half-haunted Osbaldistone Hall; of Glasgow Cathedral, and of the Highlands at Loch Ard; of the Scotch Robin Hood; of charming, miraculous Die Vernon; of inimitable Bailie Nichol Jarvie of the Saut Market; of that natural, calculating, conceited, semi-rascal, Andrew Fairservice; and of that wholly villanous Jesuit, Rashleigh. This story is associated with the first great armed attempt of the exiled Stuarts, in 1715, to recover the throne of Britain. It thus bears relationship to “Waverley," the tale of the second attempt in 1745; and if the latter tends to render sedition agreeable, this counteracts the influence. So many persons have read "Rob Roy" that its incidents may be recalled here more in detail than are those of many others of the novels, in order to connect it more evidently with delightful scenes that, we feel, might or must have witnessed its action, and that continue, and happily seem likely to continue, unusually attractive. And travellers when at, or near, Carlisle, may begin explorations of its localities, for reasons permitted by the work itself, and rendered almost conclusive, at least to the writer, by a romantic story of Scott's own life.

The novel soon introduces us to its "hero," Frank Osbaldistone, the son of a great London merchant, who, on account of steady

Hanoverian principles, held a government office. This "hero," a young man of that disposition sometimes termed poetic, had small liking for commercial business, and accordingly, much to the disgust of his father, declined entering the house of "Osbaldistone and Tresham." He was consequently exiled from the metropolis to the seat of an uncle, — a Jacobitical, Papistical, fox-hunting, carousing, country Baron, — Sir Hildebrand Osbaldistone, who dwelt with six sons like their sire, at Osbaldistone Hall, Northumberland. During the hero's journey to this place he became acquainted with persons who were afterwards influential in his affairs. The chief locality noticed along his route is the "Black-Bear Inn" at Darlington, to which cabs may not now carry curious travellers.

The usually reputed original of Osbaldistone Hall has been Chillingham Castle, Northumberland, seat of the Earl of Tankerville, situated about twelve miles from Belford (mentioned on page 35), and famous for wild cattle in its park. Another reputed original is Biddleston, at the southernmost base of the Cheviot Hills, nearly twenty miles south-west from Belford. Quaint old " Inglewood Place" of the novel, represented near the "Hall," is said to be designed from Horton Castle, rather small and old, and standing in a bleak, open country, a few miles from Chillingham. The "Hall" of the novel, evidently rather "gothic," and rather a creation of fancy than of men's hands, may properly be considered a representative seat of one who, like Sir Hildebrand, was a representative of a peculiar class, prominent in his time and earlier, and may also properly be imagined elsewhere in the North Country than in Northumberland, notwithstanding the explicit mention of that county by Scott, a mere disguise, the writer ventures to think, by reason of sundry facts and of sundry particulars good enough to be facts. A proper and probable original of the "Hall" may be found, as already intimated, during an excursion from Carlisle, one of the most agreeable that can be made from that city, and one seldom made by Americans, — to a picturesque region associated with the love-romance of Scott's own life.

The route of this excursion leads east by rail twenty-one miles to Rose-Hill Station, and thence a mile to Gilsland Spa, a quiet and uncommonly pretty little watering-place, where Scott, in 1797, met, wooed, and won, Margaret Charlotte Carpenter. During August in that year, he and his lifelong friend, Adam Fergusson, son of Prof. Fergusson, while riding over some of the neighboring

hills, encountered a young lady mounted, who so charmed them that they followed her and found her resident at the Spa. Scott met her, and soon became her favored lover, and, at Christmas following, married her. The story of their mutual happiness during nearly thirty years, and of the pathos of his grief when her life ended, must be told hereafter along these pages. A portion of his own life, so delightful as that when he was a requited lover, would very naturally appear recorded somewhere in his writings; and where is it more graphically than in the delightful surprise of Frank Osbaldistone, when, as he approached his uncle's Hall, he encountered that lively, lovely paragon of the virtues and amenities, Die Vernon, mounted and riding over the hills, whom he followed to a country house where he had opportunity to know her, and to become -as any well-disposed man might have become - charmed with her. And when we find the vicinity of Gilsland abounding in Old-World relics, and find among these a castle that has been, for centuries, a grand “romance in stone," we can hardly help feeling that we may from it "reconstruct" Osbaldistone Hall.

miles from Gilsland and less It is one of the chief shrines

This castle is Naworth, about six than a mile from the nearest station. of the olden time in all England, and delightfully illustrative of its history and of its statelier life during many a past generation; and happily, during that present, and prospectively, many an one to come. Without an attempt to deprive Chillingham of any possible honors, the suggestion may be made that its style- heavy Elizabethan - is hardly as near that of the "Hall," as is the picturesque, domestic, pointed, or Tudoresque style of Naworth; and, besides, the latter can be invested with associations appropriate, delightful, and unique. Naworth Castle has been, during centuries, a seat of the Howards, Earls of Carlisle. The daring assumption that it can have been, even in imagination, a home of the "Orsons" of Osbaldistone, may be pardoned by the consequent assumption that it can thus also have been a home of a modern goddess of the chase, of the moon-lighted sky and of the pure-aired hills, the Diana of this story; and that it can be thus also invested with memories of those unique associations, expressive of the true-hearted romance in the life of Walter Scott.

The emotional traveller while approaching this noble residence, either over the green hilly slopes, or through the magnificent park surrounding it, must probably rely upon fancy rather than upon