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ENGLISH LITERATURE

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as if there were but Street, and one of them asked him 'Do you know, sir, if this is one death-bed in London (Lockhart.) Such was the the street where he is lying? universal affection in which the people held him.

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SCOTT'S TOMB, DRYBURGH ABBEY.

"With the noble dead

In Dryburgh's solemn pile,

Amid the peer and warrior bold,
And mitred abbots stern and old,
Who sleep in sculptured aisle."

Scholars and students of folk-lore Scott's Title to Fame. will always owe Scott a debt for his enthusiasm for the ballads which he so lovingly sought and transcribed. It is likely that his poems will find not a few readers for many decades. His chief title to fame and continued popular affection, however, will undoubtedly rest on his prose romances, called from the first of the series the Waverley Novels.

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A Selection from the Waverley Novels. Although anything approaching an adequate characterization of the series in the space at our disposal is impossible, something should be offered as a guide to one who is yet to be introduced to the series, or having been introduced is to pursue the acquaintance to the best advantage. Of Ivanhoe, Kenilworth, Rob Roy, and perhaps The Talisman, it is unnecessary to speak, because of long-continued wide popularity. If the present writer were to make a selection to represent Scott

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THE ENTRANCE HALL AT ABBOTSFORD.

most adequately and to make disciples, he would name these dealing with Scottish history, A Legend of Montrose, and Old Mortality; with English history, The Fortunes of Nigel; with Scottish private life, Guy Mannering, The Heart of Midlothian, and The Bride of Lammermoor.

A Legend of Montrose is a better introduction to the Waverley novels than most of the series, because of its brevity and its simplicity of plot. Its historic setting is the Great Rebellion (1645-6), specifically the operations of Royalist forces under Montrose in the Highlands. History is treated with great freedom; and the most entertaining character

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in the romance is Dugald Dalgetty, soldier of fortune, with
a wonderful horse named after Gustavus Adolphus-
"the Lion of the North and the bulwark of the Protestant
faith."

Old Mortality deals with a larger canvas (the rebellion of the Covenanters in 1679), contains many stirring battle scenes, and portrays intimately the peasant life of Scotland. The leaders of the opposing sides, Graham of Claverhouse and Balfour of Burley, are superb figures, drawn with an impartiality to which Scott did not always attain.

The Fortunes of Nigel, while it contains much of varied interest, is chiefly notable for its picture of James I, generally regarded as Scott's greatest achievement in historical portraiture.

- If it be true, as one Novels of Scottish Private Life. critic says, that " the permanent value of Scott's novels lies in his pictures of the Scottish peasantry," then the last three of our selection constitute his chief claim on our attention. The plots of two, Guy Mannering and The Heart of Midlothian, are based on facts; but the facts are handled as freely by Scott as are his historical personages and backgrounds. Jeanie Deans, the peasant girl who in The Heart of Midlothian walks from Edinburgh to London to obtain her sister's pardon, is Scott's finest heroine; and she is surpassed by few in prose fiction. In this book also is found the fierce Madge Wildfire, almost matched by the gypsy Meg Merrilies in Guy Mannering. The Bride of Lammermoor, a sort of novelized Romeo and Juliet,' is his only attempt at a

1 Chapter V is headed by this quotation from the play:

"Is she a Capulet?

O dear account! my life is my foe's debt."

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Jane Austen's outward life was utterly commonplace. Her father was minister in Steventon, Hampshire; and she, the seventh of eight children, was born in the rectory there. No details are known regarding her education; and of the first twenty-one years of her life almost the only recorded happening is an illness she had at the age of eight while on a visit to Southampton.

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A Life in One County. When Jane was twenty-one years old, the family moved to Bath; and after eight years in that city, they returned to Hampshire. The remainder of Jane's life was spent in this county, at Southampton, Chawton, and Winchester. In the last-named city she died; and in the cathedral there she was buried.

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Jane and Cassandra. Almost the only other point worth. mentioning in connection with her life is her devotion to her sister Cassandra, two years her senior. To this attachment is doubtless due her custom of presenting pairs of sisters in her novels Jane and Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice, Elinor and Marianne Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility, Emma Woodhouse and Isabella Woodhouse Knightly in Emma, Maria and Julia Bartram in Mansfield Park.

Character of her Writings. Surely no life could be apparently more wanting in materials for fiction; but it provided just the materials Miss Austen needed. "Three or

four families in a country village," said she, "is the very thing to work on." Her people are presented in their everyday dress and manners, and develop, if they may be said to develop at all, without the aid of any striking episodes. We see them at close range; we are admitted to family

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