Carlyle said that Scott's genius was _in extenso_, rather than
_in intenso_, and that its great praise was its healthiness. This is
true of his verse, but not altogether so of his prose, which exhibits
deeper qualities. Some of Scott's most perfect poems, too, are his
shorter ballads, like _Jock o' Hazeldean_, and _Proud Maisie is in the
Wood_, which have a greater intensity and compression than his metrical
tales.
From 1814 to 1831 Scott wrote and published the _Waverley_ novels, some
thirty in number; if we consider the amount of work done, the speed with
which it was done, and the general average of excellence maintained,
perhaps the most marvelous literary feat on record. The series was
issued anonymously, and takes its name from the first number: _Waverley,
or 'Tis Sixty Years Since_. This was founded upon the rising of the
clans, in 1745, in support of the Young Pretender, Charles Edward
Stuart, and it revealed to the English public that almost foreign
country which lay just across their threshold, the Scottish Highlands.
The _Waverley_ novels remain, as a whole, unequaled as historical
fiction, although here and there a single novel, like George Eliot's
_Romola_, or Thackeray's _Henry Esmond_, or Kingsley's _Hypatia_, may
have attained a place beside the best of them.
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