This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1867 Excerpt:...of a conqueror." All the good things, as they are termed, of this life were in Scott's possession. His mansion at Abbotsford realized the highest conceptions of a poetical imagination. "It seems," says one who visited, " like a poem in stone." "This house," said another distinguished writer, " is like places that we dream about." The company which crowded around the man of genius was no less wonderful. The highest nobleman felt honoured in being allowed to take a place at his board, around which were collected from every part of the kingdom persons eminent in the various walks of life. Each day produced some novelty. Now a traveller recounted the wonders he had witnessed in foreign lands. Now a philosopher, like Sir Humphry Davy, detailed recent discoveries in science. Now a poet, or a painter, gave animation to the conversation by his genius. All sources of intellectual enjoyment were crowded together. It was worldly pleasure in its most concentrated form; and well might one of the visitors exclaim, "Surely Sir Walter Scott is, or ought to be, a happy man." And yet all this was but the Mirage. Feelingly does one, who was a witness of the pleasures of this man of genius in his palmiest days, exclaim, "Death has laid a heavy hand on that happy circle. Bright eyes long since closed in dust, gay voices for ever silenced, seem to haunt me as I write." A shock of commercial adversity ruined Sir Walter, and dispersed for ever the brilliant assemblies which had gathered round his board. The death of one who was dearest to him followed close upon this blow. What consolation could literature then afford him in the hour of trial? Let Sir Walter's own touching words reply: "When I think," he wr...