the public taste. The subjects of these poems were neither so
striking, nor the versification so attractive, as in his earlier
poems. The poet himself attributes their failure to the manner or
style losing its charms of novelty, and the harmony becoming tiresome
and ordinary; his measure and manner were imitated by other writers,
and, above all Byron had just appeared as a serious candidate in the
first canto of _Childe Harold_; so that Sir Walter with exemplary
candour confesses that "the original inventor and his invention must
have fallen into contempt, if he had not found out another road to
public favour." We shall therefore now part with his poetic fame, and
proceed in the more gratifying task of glancing at his splendid
successes in prose fiction.


WAVERLEY.


The first of the author's

long trails of light descending down,

had its origin in a desire to story the ancient traditions and noble
spirit of the Highlands, aided by the author's early recollections of
their scenery and customs; in short, to effect in prose what he had so
triumphantly achieved in the poem of _the Lady of the Lake_. The
author's own account will be read with interest:--"It was with some
idea of this kind, that, about the year 1805, I threw together about
one-third part of the first volume of Waverley. It was advertised to
be published by the late Mr. John Ballantyne, under the name of
'Waverley,' or ''Tis Fifty Years since,'--a title afterwards altered