Page:A happy half-century and other essays.djvu/94

 were filled with tears." We wonder how Scott, whose heroines cry so little and whose heroes never cry at all, stood all this weeping; and, when we remember the perfunctory nature of Sir Walter's love scenes,—wedged in any way among more important matters,—we wonder still more how he endured the ravings of Delamere, or the melancholy verses with which Godolphin from time to time soothes his despondent soul.

It was not, however, the mournfulness of "Emmeline" which displeased Miss Seward, but rather the occasional intrusion of "low characters"; of those underbred and unimpassioned persons who—as in Miss Burney's and Miss Ferrier's novels—are naturally and almost cheerfully vulgar. That Mr. William Hayley, author of "The Triumphs of Temper," and her own most ardent admirer, should tune his inconstant lyre in praise of Mrs. Smith was more than Miss Seward could bear. "My very