244 ROUGH WAYS MADE SMOOTH. 



I was engaged were manifestly carried on without thought, 

 one being purely mechanical and the other, though requir- 

 ing thought if properly attended to, being so imperfectly 

 effected as to show that no thought was given to it. 



To return to Sir Walter Scott. It is known but too well 

 that during the later years of his life there came with bodily 

 prostration a great but not constant failure of his mental 

 powers. Some of the phenomena presented during this part 

 of his career are strikingly illustrative of abnormal mental 

 action occurring even at times when the mental power is on 

 the whole much weakened. The Bride of Lammermoor, though 

 not one of the best of Scott's novels, is certainly far above 

 such works as Count Robert of Paris, The Betrothed, and 

 Castle Dangerous. Its popularity may perhaps be attributed 

 chiefly to the deep interest of the ' ower true tale ' on which 

 it is founded : but some of the characters are painted with 

 exceeding skill. Lucy herself is almost a nonentity, and 

 Edgar is little more than a gloomy, unpleasant man, made 

 interesting only by the troubles which fall on him. But 

 Caleb Balderstone and Ailsie Gourlay stand out from the 

 canvas as if alive ; they are as lifelike and natural, yet as 

 thoroughly individualised as Edie Ochiltree and Meg Merri- 

 lies. The novel neither suggested when it first appeared, 

 nor has been regarded even after the facts became known, 

 as suggesting that Scott, when he wrote it, was in bad health. 

 Yet it was produced under pressure of severe illness, and 

 when Scott was at least in this sense unconscious, that no- 

 thing of what he said and did in connection with the work 

 was remembered when he recovered. 'The book,' says 

 James Ballantyne, 'was not only written, but published, 

 before Mr. Scott was able to rise from his bed ; and he 

 assured me that when it was first put into his hands in a 

 complete shape, he did not recollect one single incident, charac- 

 ter, or conversation it contained! He did not desire me to 

 understand, nor did I understand, that his illness had erased 

 from his memory the original incidents of the story, with 

 which he had been acquainted from his boyhood. These 



