almost unlimited accumulation of traditions and incidents with which his
astonishing memory was stored; in seventeen years he published nearly
thirty 'Waverley' novels, equipping most of them, besides, with long
fictitious introductions, which the present-day reader almost universally
skips. The profits of Scott's works, long amounting apparently to from ten
to twenty thousand pounds a year, were beyond the wildest dream of any
previous author, and even exceeded those of most popular authors of the
twentieth century, though partly because the works were published in
unreasonably expensive form, each novel in several volumes. Still more
gratifying were the great personal popularity which Scott attained and his
recognition as the most eminent of living Scotsmen, of which a symbol was
his elevation to a baronetcy in 1820.

But the brightness of all this glory was to be pathetically dimmed. In 1825
a general financial panic, revealing the laxity of Scott's business
partners, caused his firm to fail with liabilities of nearly a hundred and
twenty thousand pounds. Always magnanimous and the soul of honor, Scott
refused to take advantage of the bankruptcy laws, himself assumed the
burden of the entire debt, and set himself the stupendous task of paying it
with his pen. Amid increasing personal sorrows he labored on for six years
and so nearly attained his object that the debt was actually extinguished
some years after his death. But in the effort he completed the exhaustion
of his long-overtaxed strength, and, a trip to Italy proving unavailing,
returned to Abbotsford, and died, a few weeks after Goethe, in 1832.

As a man Scott was first of all a true and thorough gentleman, manly, open
hearted, friendly and lovable in the highest degree. Truthfulness and
courage were to him the essential virtues, and his religious faith was deep
though simple and unobtrusive. Like other forceful men, he understood his
own capacity, but his modesty was extreme; he always insisted with all