The "Border Edition" of the Waverley Novels for February (Nimmo)
contains St. Ronan's Well, a story that would have proved a great tragedy had it not been for the false delicacy of James Ballantyne. As the tale now stands, there is not sufficient reason for the remorse and madness of Clara Mowbray, and Scott was right in his belief that the narrative was "weakened and per- plexed." "The delicate printer," says Lockhart, "shrank from the idea of obtruding on the fastidious public the possibility of any personal contamination having been incurred by a highborn damsel of the nineteenth century." Scott bowed to the objection much against his will. "You would never have quarrelled with it," he said, "had the thing happened to a girl in gingham,—the silk petticoat can make little difference" Scott, as all his readers know, was not at home in the delineation of modern social life, and St. Bonan's Well, despite the incomparable Meg Dods and Mrs. Blower, is a comparative failure. This is Mr. Lang's opinion. Scott was unfitted, he says, to write the domestic novel ; but there are passages in it, as he points out, on the highest level of poetic invention. Among the ten fine etchings in the novel, special praise is due to "Meg Dods" and " St. Ronan's Village," drawn by Sir G. Reid,—Meg being etched by Mr. Boucher, and the village by Mr. Cameron. Very felicitous, too, is the "Reappearance of Tyrrel ; " and indeed there is not one of the etchings that does not illustrate the text. No novel of the series, it appears to us, has been treated more admirably.—The " Dryburgh Edition" of the Waverley Novels for February (A. and C. Black) contains Quentin. Durward, which ranks with the most powerful of Scott's romances. The book contains ten effective illustrations drawn by H. M. Paget, and engraved on wood by J. D. Cooper. Hazlitt writes somewhere of paying five shillings for the loan of one of the " Waverleya " from the circulating library. How glad would he have been to purchase the novel for that sum in a handsonie volume like this !
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