THE SCOTT CENTENARY. 351 



that by doiug so you only stimulate passions as low as licentiousness itself ; the 

 passions which were stimulated by the gladiatorial shows in degi'aded Rome, 

 which are stimulated by the bull-fights in degraded Spain ; which are stimulated 

 among ourselves by exhibitions the attraction of which really consists in their 

 imperilling human life. He knew that a novelist had no right even to introduce 

 the terrible except for the purpose of exhibiting human heroism, developing 

 character, awakening emotions, which when awakened dignify and save from 

 harm. It is want of genius and of knowledge of their craft that drives novel- 

 ists to outrage humanity with horrors. Miss Austen can interest and even 

 excite you as much with the little domestic adventures of Emma as some of her 

 rivals can with a whole Newgate calendar of guilt and gore. 



The Lamp of CmvAtRY. — Of this briefly. Let the writer of fiction, 

 give us humanity in all its phases, the comic as well as the tragic, 

 the ridiculous as well as the sublime ; but let him not lower the standard 

 of character or the aim of life. Shakespeare does not. "We delight in 

 his Falstafifs and in his clowns as well as in his Hamlets and Othellos; 

 but he never familiarizes us with what is base and mean. The noble and 

 chivalrous always holds its place as the aim of true humanity in his ideal 

 world. I am not sure that Dickens is free from blame in this respect ; that 

 Pickwickianism has not in some degree familiarized the generation of Englishmen 

 who have been fed upon it with w'hat is mean, — not chivalrous, to say the 

 least — in conduct, as well as with slang in conversation. But Scott, like Shake- 

 speare, wherever the thread of his fiction may lead him, always keeps before 

 himself and us the highest ideal which he knew — the ideal of a gentleman. If 

 anyone says these are narrow bounds wherein to confine fiction, I answer there 

 has been room enough within them for the highest tragedy, the deepest pathos, 

 the broadest humour, the widest range of character, the most moving incidents 

 that the world has ever enjoyed. There has been room within them for all the 

 kings of pure and healthy fiction, — for Homer, Shakespeare, Cervantes, Molifere, 

 Scott. " Farewell, Sir Walter," says Carlyle at the end of his essay, " farewell. 

 Sir "Walter, pride of all Scotchmen." Scotland has said farewell to her mortal 

 son. But all humanity welcomes him as Scotland's noblest gift to her, and 

 crowns him, as on this day, one of the heirs of immortality. 



