Tower, and Helvellyn, all worth exploring. From Keswick also, there may be readily excursions to Skiddaw, Saddleback, Derwentwater, Borrowdale, and Scawfell Pike (the highest mountain in England, three thousand one hundred and sixty-six feet elevation). From the Lake District, travellers may go to Penrith, and there see the remains of its castle, and of King Arthur's Round Table. Thence they may go by train to Carlisle. From that ancient city, interesting excursions may also be made. Certain of these excursions are into scenery associated with Scott's creations. All this can be seen in two or three days, if time is short, and will be described in the four chapters succeeding the next, in which, preliminarily, is some sketch of the first published of his Prose Romances, that has, from its title, supplied the well-known name of the famous series that followed it-"The Waverley Novels."

THIS

XVIII.

"WAVERLEY; OR, 'TIS SIXTY YEARS SINCE."

HIS "Immortal Tale" was published July 7, 1814. Its sale from the first was unprecedentedly rapid; yet it increased in favor with the world, so that during twenty years fully fifty thousand copies were sold, and at prices much higher than those now obtained for novels. It was begun, as Scott tells us, "about the year 1805," and was even advertised under the title, "Waverley; or, 'tis Fifty Years Since." It was, however, abandoned after about one-third had been written, and the manuscript was laid aside. After many years of poem-writing, Scott was influenced to turn his attention to another class of composition; and this neglected, or more truly then missing, fragment was brought to light, and the work was resumed, completed, and presented to the public as has been mentioned. A good thought of Scott produced this happy result. He observed how the excellent stories of Miss Edgeworth had done much towards rendering English people familiar with Irish character; and that she had thus even "done more toward completing the union, than perhaps all the legislative enactments by which it" had "been followed up." Furthermore, he said, that "early recollections of the Highland scenery and customs made so favorable an impression in the poem called 'The Lady of the Lake,' that I was induced to think of attempting something of the same kind in prose. I had been a good deal in the Highlands at a time when they were much less accessible, and much less visited, than they have been of late years, and was acquainted with many of the old warriors of 1745, who were, like most veterans, easily induced to fight their battles over again, for the benefit of a willing listener like myself." And thus, with patriotic feeling, and especial training, he composed this masterly delineation of phases of old-time life rapidly passing away; a delinea

tion by which he not only made a great number of persons better acquainted with many Scottish affairs, and rendered these charming to them, but by which he also gave the world an admirable historic, as well as romantic, illustration of life and manners in his native land during the great "affair" of 1745,- the last (be it alway the last) great civil conflict in Britain.

These pages will not contain too full an exposition of the entire plots of the novels. Readers who are acquainted with them will remember them; and those who have yet to obtain the pleasure of a first perusal can have small thanks for such tale-telling. The scenes with which these plots are chiefly associated will be sketched, in order that, possibly, some persons may be aided, either in finding these scenes, therein to enjoy personal fancies; or, if elsewhere, in learning something of objects associated with the development of the power, or, with the achievements, of the great Genius of Romance.

"Waverley" is more representative of general classes of characters and objects than are many others of Scott's historical novels. The localities of its action are often ideal,- typical of the general description of the places they represent, and not actual, like Norham, or Tantallon, or Flodden Field; and furthermore, they are so scattered, that an enumeration of them forms a chapter of necessarily rather disconnected items. The story introduces us to Edward Waverley, son of Richard Waverley, a member of a government board (and then, of course, a Hanoverian), who was a younger brother of Sir Everard Waverley of Waverley Honour, a very respectable and long-descended country gentleman, who staunchly supported Church and State according to pure Tory and HighChurch principles. Each of the latter two Waverleys is a representative creation. The ancestral seat, also, is representative of "the stately homes of England" of the Olden Time. With the Knight lived awhile Edward Waverley, who, imaginative, idly industrious, gentlemanly, and handsome, was prospective heir to his uncle, - a good-natured and rather elderly bachelor. Edward had read voraciously, but desultorily, from general, and especially from romantic, literature, and had also been influenced by the storytelling proficiency of a maiden aunt resident with this uncle. When, at length, a choice of profession became usual, this young gentleman, like one of his social position and period, chose that of arms. In due course he thus came to be stationed at Dundee, "a sea

port on the eastern coast of Angus-shire, where his regiment" was quartered, commanded by the well-known, excellent Colonel Gardiner. Obtaining from this officer leave of absence, he, then Captain Waverley, resolved to visit an ancient titled friend, and a correspondent of his uncle, to whom he had an introductory letter. An easy, two-days' ride in the saddle brought him toward the Highlands of Perthshire. "Near the bottom of this stupendous barrier, but still in the Lowland country, dwelt Cosmo Comyne Bradwardine, of Bradwardine, the personage whom he was about visiting."

The name of this gentleman's residence was Tully-Veolan, described as a castellated structure, "built at a period when castles were no longer necessary, and when Scottish architects had not yet acquired the art of designing a domestic residence." It was reached through a long avenue lined by alternate horse-chestnuts and sycamores, and leading from a mean and dirty village. It was as profusely adorned with heraldic bears as that quaint old Swiss city, Berne. Even the allied resources of archæology and antiquarianism can hardly determine the earthly position of this seat, for it is of the representative, or ideal, sort, apparently designed from features of several of its class at which Scott visited. One ingenious writer states that it "finds a striking counterpart in Traquair House [near Innerleithen] in Peebles-shire," where there are, or were, a gateway, an avenue, and a house very like Tully-Veolan, but almost without the latter's important beauties, - the bears. Other persons have found much resemblance of detail between the Bradwardine seat and Ravelston and Craigcrook, two residences a few miles from Edinburgh towards Corstorphine Hill. Both have, or had, gardens in the curious, formal style prevalent a century or more ago, and described as pertaining to Tully-Veolan. A more complete resemblance is, however, found in Grandtully Castle, three miles from Aberfeldy, in Perthshire, situated, indeed, quite as we are told Tully-Veolan was, and generally considered its prototype. It is a massive, baronial mansion, in good repair, nearly four hundred years old, surrounded by noble elm-trees, and standing at a little distance from the road, yet not prominently. It is, or was, approached through an unpretending wooden gate, and through an avenue lined by horse-chestnut and other trees. The edifice, formerly reached over a drawbridge crossing a moat, is nearly square, and has a square, ivy-draped wing. It has, also, the frequent Scottish assortment of chimneys, gables, and queer pepper-box turrets

on corbels at angles. It is built of rather small broken stones, with abundance of dingy cement, and thus had, to the writer, a motley appearance. It is not large; and, if a comparison be permitted, it might, as a representative building, strikingly suggest the comparative wealth and luxury of Scotland in "'45" and now, if, as TullyVeolan, it is contrasted with the neighboring lordly seat of the Marquis of Breadalbane, — Taymouth Castle. In Scott's time, Grandtully had been held more than four centuries by the Stewart family then owning it, - a fact that might have induced him not to transfer it to the Bradwardines.

A more possible original than even Grandtully is said to be Craighall, a mile and a half north of Blair Gowrie in Perthshire, the seat of the Rattrays, a very old family, related to Mr. Clerk, who accompanied Scott during his tour in 1793, when he visited this place. It is one of the most picturesquely situated mansions in Scotland: "a modernized ancient edifice, on a peninsulated rock, rising two hundred and fourteen feet sheer from the Ericht, and formerly defended on the land side by two towers" still existing. It is accessible only from the front, and commands surprisingly romantic views. In several features it is not quite like Tully-Veolan; but when "Waverley" appeared, and Scott was the "Great Unknown" to nearly every one as he was to Mr. Clerk, the latter, according to Lockhart, "at once perceived,” “from the position of this striking place," "and as the author afterwards confessed to him, that of the Tully-Veolan was very faithfully copied ; though in the description of the house itself, and its gardens, many features were adopted from Bruntsfield and Ravelstone." Indeed, Mr. Clerk read "the first chapters of Waverley' without more than a vague suspicion of the new novelist; but when he read the arrival at Tully-Veolan his suspicion was at once converted into certainty ;" and he said to a friend of Scott and of himself, "This is Scott's! and I'll lay a bet you'll find such and such things in the next chapter." There is, near Craighall, adding to its resemblances to the seat of the Bradwardines, a glen with a cave, described in a later portion of this story, and mentioned on page 145.

It is evident that although Tully-Veolan is a creation of the author, it is an excellent representative of a Scottish manor-house of the last century, and also that it is one of the styles of houses at which Scott visited while he was "making himself.” At it, Captain Waverley became acquainted with the whimsical, gallant, old Baron, —