for the copyright of Sir Walter's novels were nominally immense; but
they were chiefly paid in bills, which were renewed as the necessities
of the publisher increased, till, on his failure, Sir Walter found
himself responsible for various debts, amounting to 102,000_l_. About
this time Lady Scott died, and her loss was an additional affliction
to him. Various modes of settlement were proposed to Sir Walter for
the liquidation of these heavy debts; but, "like the elder
Osbaldistone of his own immortal pages, considering commercial honour
as dear as any other honour," he would only consent to payment _in
full_; and, in the short space of six years, he paid off 60,000_l._
"by his genius alone; but he crushed his spirit in the gigantic
struggle, or, in plain words, sacrificed himself in the attempt to
repair his broken fortunes." He sold his house and furniture in
Edinburgh, and, says Chambers, "retreated into a humble lodging in a
second-rate street (St. David-street, where David Hume had formerly
lived.)" He reduced his establishment at Abbotsford, and retired, as
far as his official duties would permit, from public life, accompanied
only by his younger daughter. In this domestic retreat, at fifty-five
years of age, he commenced


THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE


--visiting France, in 1826, for some information requisite to the
work. In the following summer the _Life_ appeared in nine volumes, an
extent much beyond the original project. As might be expected, from
the aristocratical turn of Sir Walter's political tenets, the opinions
on this work were more various than on any other of his productions:
it is, to say the best, the most faulty and unequal of them all; and,