CONCLUSION
“Scott’s chivalrous imagination threw a certain air of courteous gallantry into his relations with his daughters.... Though there could not be a gentler mother than Lady Scott, ... on those delicate occasions most interesting to young ladies, they always made their father the first confidant.” In his works of imagination, the relation of father and daughter is always touched with peculiar grace and tenderness. His dressing-room was “a little chapel of the Lares” fitted up with relics of his father and mother. In every relation of life and literature his motto was “à léal souvenir”; he kept the pious trust of all things old that were of good report, and handed on the sacred bequest to all who follow him. As to his place in literature, we leave it to the judgment of the world and of the unborn. They “cannot say but he has had the crown.”
Tides of criticism come and go; they may leave the fame and name of Walter Scott deserted, like the cairn of a forgotten warrior forsaken by a receding sea, or they may fill the space with the diapason of their waves. We cannot prophesy. But one sound will not cease, if men dead remember, the carol of the lark that sang above Scott’s grave at the funeral of the dearest of his daughters. That song of praise for such happiness as—
sceptred king not laurelled conqueror
can give, has followed “this wondrous potentate” from three generations who have warmed their hands at the hearth of his genius, who have drunk of his enchanted cup, and eaten of his fairy bread, and been happy through his gift.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] My kinsman, the late Professor Sellar, went to the Edinburgh Academy at seven, and was Dux, as the head boy used to be called, at fourteen.
[2] Edward Fitzgerald (Omar Kháyyám) says that Lockhart introduced a false quantity. In fact, James Ballantyne was guilty. cf. p. 204. infra.
[3] I noticed Lamb’s reply, declining the invitation, in the MSS. at Abbotsford.
[4] Έφῆσιν άτασθαλίῃσιν ύπὲρ μόρον ᾀλγὲ ἒχουσιν