'self, however, and determined to return,' &c.-Waverley, vol. iii. ch. 12.

Both writers, the one in his Introduction to the Monastery (letter to Captain Clutterbuck), the other in his Life of Swift (concluding section, page 497), use the name Utopia to denote the realm of imagination in general, not confining it, as the etymology requires, to supposed regions of absolute perfection.

The familiar appellation of Bluff King Hal' is applied to Henry the Eighth in Marmion,

"Bluff King Hal the curtain drew."

Canto VI. St. 38.

And in Kenilworth- a reverend father Abbot, who was 'fain to give place to bluff King Hall.'—Vol. ii. ch. 6. The following antique expression is several times repeated by the novelist and poet:

"To him he lost his lady-love."

Marmion, Canto I. St. 12.

"Memorial of his ladye-love."

Lay of the Last Minstrel, Canto IV. St. 16.

'I vow by the name of my bright lady-love.'-Ivanhoe, vol. 2. ch. 15.

'I know no right of chivalry,' he said, 'more precious or ' inalienable than that of each free knight to choose his lady-love by his own judgment.'-Ibid. vol. i. ch. 9.

It cannot, I think, appear frivolous or irrelevant, in the inquiry we are pursuing, to dwell on these minute coincidences. Unimportant indeed they are if looked upon as subjects of direct criticism; but considered with reference tr our present purpose, they resemble those light sub

d from

which, floating on the trackless sea, discover the true setting of some mighty current: they are the buoyant drift-wood which betrays the hidden communication of two great poetic

oceans.

I will now, Sir, conclude a series of remarks which, perhaps, would never have been commenced if I could have anticipated the length to which they have insensibly extended. You will smile when I declare that in every part of these letters I have been anxious to compress my observations as far as appeared consistent with a proper treatment of the question, and that scarcely any topic has been dismissed because the materials were exhausted. But who, in speaking of a favourite author, was ever able to confine himself within his proposed limits? And what subject of discussion ever yielded stronger inducements to deviate and to linger, than the theme on which I have detained you? When our path lies amidst the richest and sweetest flowers, is it easy to press on unrelaxing to the goal? Too often, I confess, have illustrations been selected, as much, at least, for beauty as for aptness; arguments have been followed up, when there remained no weightier motive for pursuing them than the pleasure of pursuit; comparative criticism has lost itself in positive disquisition; and the result has been this enormous intrusion on your leisure, for which I dare not now solicit your favourable consideration, but I anxiously entreat your indulgence.

Yet, Sir, however mortified I might feel at having wearied you by a tedious and rambling dissertation, there is another point on which I should be much more sorry to have transgressed. If these letters merely fatigue your patience, you will lay them aside, and part with them, I hope, in charity; but it would be a heavy reproach upon

Author, if you dismissed them with a feeling of just

Γ

displeasure at any freedom used with that great writer and respected man, who adds to his other titles of honour that of being your friend. But on this head I have little apprehension. In addressing to you a course of remarks affecting our admired poet and biographer, I have not thought myself permitted to advance a single observation. which might not with propriety have been urged in his own presence. As I have never felt the most transient inclination to violate this rule, I am persuaded that neither zeal nor inadvertence can in any instance have led me to infringe it. If personal topics have been insisted on, they are of a nature wholly inoffensive, and such only as the poet has himself supplied in his acknowledged publications. For the liberty I have taken with some passages of his works which appeared open to critical reflection, I would not (supposing him acquainted with what I had written) offend his excellent sense by offering an apology, nor do I offer any to you.

The secret I have attempted to penetrate, may fairly be regarded as a riddle propounded to the public; an enigma, of which they have no right to demand the solution, but every man may freely promulgate his own. In attempting to unravel such a mystery by honest and open means, there can surely be neither officiousness nor indiscretion. The materials out of which this essay is formed, were lying in the full view of the world; I have combined them as my own fancy and judgment guided me: if my speculations are ill-founded, they yield a new testimony to the address of him who can so skilfully elude conjecture; if just, they serve, indeed, to fix and determine our opinions, but they leave the mysterious subject of our inquiries as fully master of his secret as he was before those inquiries began. It cannot be wrested from

1

him by mere argumentative proof, nor would I have adduced any other, even though it had been in my possession. If a mask excites our curiosity, we may endeavour to detect him by his voice, his walk, his jests, his minute habits, his choice of character, his selection of colours, his general style of dress; but it would be a pitiful and sordid diligence which sought to make assurance perfect by prying into his dressing-room, overhearing his directions to his servants, or secretly pursuing him to his home.

I earnestly hope that the author of Waverley may never be disturbed in his concealment by this mean and mechanical spirit of inquisition, even though he should indefinitely prolong the duration of our present uncertainty. All legitimate endeavours to read his riddle, he may, I think, regard with unmoved complacency, retaining his disguise in spite of them, so long as it shall be his pleasure to wear one. And late, very late may he discard it, if the mystery it casts around his person be in any degree propitious to the exercise of that genius which has so exalted and enriched our literature. The gratification of curiosity, however intense, would be a grievous misfortune, if attended by a cessation of the wonder-working power which has raised our curiosity so high.

"The charm was broke, when the spirit spoke,

Alas! that ever thou raised'st thine eyes,

Thine eyes to look on me.'

Lord Soulis, Border Minstrelsy, Vol. III. Part 3.

There may perhaps be an appearance of undue freedom towards our admirable poet, in the very act of associating his name so pointedly and unreservedly as I have,

with that of another writer, who, after all, is, possibly, as much a stranger to him as myself. For this error, if such you deem it, I can only plead in excuse the zeal arising from attachment to a long cherished opinion, and from a warm, perhaps a romantic wish, that it may prove wellfounded. The unclaimed honours of the novelist must ultimately descend on some head, and I would gladly see them rest on one which has already been adorned with wreaths of literary triumph. There is a magnificence in the thought that all these noble fictions, in poetry and in prose, are the vast and various creation of one genius, one versatile and energetic mind, such as our country, such as the world has seldom seen disporting itself in works of imagination. And if this mighty talent is to be discovered in a single mortal, there is none in whom I should so much rejoice to find it recognized as the ardent, the chivalrous, the tender, the stainless, the patriotic Minstrel of the Border. It is, I am well aware, an intrusion even to "thrust greatness" upon one who would decline it; but the zeal which is distasteful to him, may meet indulgence, and even sympathy from his admirers: and you, I am sure, will pardon the mistaken, if mistaken, enthusiasm which would invest your honoured friend with the sovereignty of a twofold intellectual kingdom, more valuable than Spain and the Indies.

I have the honour to be, &c.

THE END.