GENIUS OF GALT. 2? 



The modesty of Sir Walter is almost proverbial : he never could per- 

 suade himself, notwithstanding the unanimous award of the public, 

 both as expressed by words, and by the still more conclusive lan- 

 guage of the sale of his works to an unprecedented extent, that he 

 possessed any extraordinary merits as an author. He prided himself 

 infinitely more on his knowledge of gardening than on his literary 

 capabilities. It is exactly so with Mr. Gait. They do him an in- 

 justice who suspect him of affectation when he says that he does not 

 consider himself a literary character. He is prouder far of being 

 regarded as a man of business. He has given convincing proof of 

 this : whenever circumstances have held out to him any reasonable 

 prospect of success in business, he has not hesitated for a moment 

 to abjure literature, and embrace the opportunity. Witness the promp- 

 titude with which he accepted the offer of the Canada Company, 

 when it could only be accepted at the sacrifice of his literary 

 pursuits and prospects. Not that Mr. Gait, any more than Sir 

 Walter, disliked literary occupation, but that both had so modest 

 an opinion of themselves as not to think their works likely to do 

 credit to them. While both have been grateful for the proofs of 

 approbation lavished upon them, both have wondered how the 

 public should have formed so high an estimate of their merits. 



Sir Walter wrote his works with amazing rapidity. Here again 

 the parallel holds good. Who but Scott himself, has written so vo- 

 luminiously as Mr. Gait? 



The Author of " Waverley" did not confine himself to works of 

 fiction ; neither has the author of " The Annals of the Parish." 

 Both have written, and written well, on a variety of other subjects. 

 It is no less worthy of remark that both, in their deviations from the 

 path in which they have been most successful, have fixed on sub- 

 stantially the same subjects. 



, Scott had powerful inducements, other than the abstract love of 

 fame, to prosecute literary pursuits. He wanted the means to carry 

 into effect, in the first stages of his career as an author, his pro- 

 jected improvements in his darling Abbotsford, which were only to 

 " be procured by the profits on his publications :" after the crisis in 

 his affairs in 1826, his ardent love of justice to his creditors supplied 

 an equally strong stimulus to literary exertion. The case has been 

 substantially the same with Mr. Gait ; his reverses in business, and 

 the consequent necessity of providing for his family by mental exer- 

 tion, have proved the grand incentives to that literary labour which 

 has produced nearly 100 volumes. Viewing Sir Walter and Mr. 

 Gait in their abstract characters as individuals, we have always 

 deeply sympathized with them in their misfortunes : regarding them 

 as authors only, the matter assumes a different aspect for, had they 

 been men of fortune, we should indeed have had but comparatively 

 few of those works of theirs which are now delighting the world. 



Scott was a man of great fortitude. Had he not possessed this 

 quality in an unusual degree, he must have sunk under the appalling 

 disasters which accumulated upon him at the period to which refer- 

 ence has been made. Mr. Gait is equally endowed with this noble 

 attribute. Who that knows aught of the number and magnitude of 



