has written. With the exception of Voltaire, and perhaps of Lord Byron,
there is scarcely a writer whose popularity, while he lived, passed
beyond the precincts of his own country. This, until latterly, was
scarcely possible. Till near the middle of the eighteenth century, what
had been long called the "Republic of Letters" existed only in name. It
is not truly applicable but to the present period, when the transmission
of knowledge is rapid and easy, and no work of unquestionable genius can
excite much interest in any country, without the vibration being quickly
felt to the uttermost limits of the civilized world. How little this was
previously the case is evident from the fact, that numerous and
important as were the political relations of England with the continent,
and successfully as we had attended to the cultivation of letters, yet
it is scarcely more than a hundred years since we were first known on
the continent to have what might deserve to be called "a Literature."
Shakspeare, Dryden, and Pope, successively enjoyed in their own country
the highest popularity as writers. Of these, it may reasonably be
doubted whether the name of the first had been ever heard out of it. We
can find no evidence which shows that the second had a wider fame. Pope
was indeed better known; for literature had been made conspicuous
through honours paid to it by the statesmen of Queen Anne; and Pope was
the friend of a peer politically eminent, and was thought, in
conjunction with him, to have written a poem, of which, if the poetry
was disregarded, the opinions were not unacceptable to the
"philosophers" of the continent.

One of the points of view in which the Author of Waverley is first
presented to us is, as a delineator of human character. When we regard
him in this light, we are struck at once by the fertility of his
invention, and the force, novelty, and fidelity of his pictures. He
brings to our minds, not abstract beings, but breathing, acting,