Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 7.djvu/99

Rh professedly by a different author from him of Waverley: an expedient which the real author had thought conducive to the maintenance of the public interest. Having now drawn upon public curiosity to the extent of twelve volumes in each of his two incognitos, he seems to have thought it necessary to adopt a third, and accordingly he intended Ivanhoe, which appeared in the beginning of 1820, to come forth as the first work of a new candidate for public favour. From this design he was diverted by a circumstance of trivial importance, the publication of a novel at London, pretending to be a fourth series of the Tales of my Landlord. It was therefore judged necessary that Ivanhoe should appear as a veritable production of the author of Waverley. To it succeeded, in the course of the same year, the Monastery and the Abbot, which were judged as the least meritorious of all his prose tales. In the beginning of the year 1821, appeared Kenilworth; making twelve volumes, if not written, at least published, in as many months. In 1822 he produced the Pirate and the Fortunes of Nigel ; in 1823, Peveril of the Peak (four volumes) and Quentin Durward; in 1824, St Ronan's Well and Redgauntlet; in 1825, Tales of the Crusaders (four volumes); in 1826, Woodstock; in 1827, Chronicles of the Canongate, first series (two volumes); in 1828, Chronicles of the Canongate, second series; in 182.9, Anne of Geierstein; and in 1831, a fourth series of Tales of my Landlord, in four volumes, containing two tales, respectively entitled Count Robert of Paris, and Castle Dangerous. The whole of these novels, except where otherwise specified, consisted of three volumes, and, with those formerly enumerated, make up the amount of his fictitious prose compositions to the enormous sum of seventy-four volumes.

Throughout the whole of his career, both as a poet and novelist, Sir Walter was in the habit of turning aside occasionally to less important avocations of a literary character. He was a contributor to the Edinburgh Review during the first few years of its existence. To the Quarterly Review, he was a considerable contributor, especially for the last five or six years of his life, during which the work was conducted by his son-in-law, Mr Lockhart. To the Supplement of the sixth edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, he contributed the articles Chivalry, Romance, and the Drama. In 1818, he wrote one or two small prose articles for a periodical, after the manner of the Spectator, which was started by his friend Mr John Ballantyne, under the title of "The Saleroom," and was soon after dropped for want of encouragement In 1814, he edited the Works of Swift, in nineteen volumes, with a life of the author. In 1814, Sir Walter gave his name and an elaborate introductory essay to a work, entitled "Border Antiquities," (two volumes, quarto,) which consisted of engravings of the principal antique objects on both sides of the Border, accompanied by descriptive letter-press. In 1815, he made a tour of France and Belgium, visiting the scene of the recent victory over Napoleon. The result was a lively traveller's volume, under the title of "Paul's Letters to his Kinsfolk," and a poem, styled "The Field of Waterloo." In the same year he joined with Mr Robert Jamieson and Mr Henry Weber, in composing a quarto on Icelandic Antiquities. In 1819, he published "An Account of the Regalia of Scotland," and undertook to furnish the letter-press to a second collection of engravings, under the title of "Provincial Antiquities and Picturesque Scenery of Scotland," one of the most elegant books which has ever been published respecting the native country of the editor.

In the year 1820, the agitated state of the country was much regretted by Sir Walter Scott; and he endeavoured to prove the absurdity of the popular excitement in favour of a more extended kind of parliamentary representation, by three papers, which he inserted in the Edinburgh Weekly Journal newspaper,