Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 8.djvu/275

Rh than once run a muck against the powers that be, when he found them stopping up his way. On this account he had also brought down upon his head the ire of the Quarterlu Review, whose censure was enough to blight the popularity of an author among Tory readers, and throw him out upon neutral ground. Thus, up to 1820, his attempts were a series of literary blunders, and his production of that year, "The Earthquake," a stern, sombre novel, in three volumes, which has shared the fate of his other productions written before this period, should, in ordinary circumstances, have been his last attempt in authorship. But in his long search in the dark he had hit upon the right vein at last. It was not in the wild and wonderful that he was to excel, but in the homely, the humorous, and the caustic. "The hero's harp, the lover's lute," with which he had tried to enchant the world, but to no purpose, were to be exchanged for the vulgar bagpipe and stock-and-horn. His first attempt in this way was the "Ayrshire Legatees"—a work which originated in mere accident. One of his enjoyments was to "show the lions" to such strangers as were introduced to him in London; and of these, as might be expected, were many original characters from the far north, whose sensations among the wonders of the great metropolis were a rich feast to his keen observant eye and quick sense of the ludicrous. It soon occurred to him that these peculiarities might be embodied in particular personages, and illustrated by correspondent adventures, the whole materials were before him like those of a rich landscape, and only needed artistic selection and combination to form a very choice picture. Upon this idea he set to work, and without any formal plot for his story, scene after scene grew upon his hand as it was needed, until the "Ayrshire Legatees" was the result. It was in this way that "Humphrey Clinker" was produced—the best of all Smollett's productions. As fast as the chapters of Galt's new attempt were written, they were published in Blackwood's Magazine of 1820 and 1821, and their appearance excited universal attention, while they continued to rise in popularity to the last; so that, when finished, they were published separately, and eagerly devoured by the novel-reading public. It was a style of writing which had been so long disused, as to have all the charms of originality, while the truthfulness of the different characters was such as to impart to fiction all the charms of reality. Galt found that he had succeeded at last, and followed up his success with the "Annals of the Parish," which was published in 1821. This work, however, although so late in its appearance, was, properly speaking, the first of Galt's Scottish novels, as it had been written in 1813, but laid aside, until the success of the "Ayrshire Legatees" encouraged him to commit it to the press. In this work, also, he had not troubled himself about the construction of a regular plot, and, like its predecessor, it was all the better for the omission. Long before he commenced the "Annals," his ambition had been to "write a book that would be for Scotland what the 'Vicar of Wakefield' is for England;" and this was the result. He certainly could not have adopted a better model.

No one can imagine that the pen of Galt, so indefatigable when success was against it, would now relapse into idleness. In the "Annals of the Parish" he had exhibited the progress of improvement in a rural district of the west of Scotland; he was now desirous of describing the same progress in a town. Such was the origin of the "Provost," which was published in 1822. He had now learned the true secret of novel-writing, as is evident from the following statement:—"In the composition of the 'Provost' I followed the same rule of art