Through life the subject of this sketch was unfortunate; nor has posthumous justice redressed the balance in his favour. His fellow-countrymen and fellow-craftsmen, Scott and Smollett—with whom, if below them, he is not unworthy to be mentioned—have long since been accorded high rank among the great novelists of English literature: Galt remains in obscurity. And yet it is easy to understand how his qualities have failed of recognition. For though his character was in the ordinary sense of the word exemplary, his genius extraordinary, yet in either there was something lacking. Indeed the study of his life and works reveals almost as much to be blamed as to be praised.

John Galt was born at Irvine, in Ayrshire, on the 2nd May, 1779, in that humbler station of society, which—in so far as it dispenses with screens and concealments, and so brings a child the sooner face to face with life as it is—may be considered favourable to genius. In childhood he was of infirm constitution and somewhat effeminate disposition—defects which were, however, in due course amply rectified. At this time his passion for flowers and for music gave evidence of a sensibility which, if one is loth to condemn it as unwholesome, is at least of doubtful augury for happiness in a workaday world. To these affections he joined the love of ballads and story-books—in the midst of which he would often pass the day in lounging upon his bed. Nor did oral tradition fail him; for, frequenting the society of the indigent old women of the locality, from their lips he would drink in to his heart's content that lore of a departing age which he afterwards turned to such good account in his works. To his own mother, whom nature had gifted with remarkable mental powers, and in particular with a strong sense of humour and a faculty of original expression, his debt was admitted to be great. Not unnaturally Mrs Galt at first strenuously opposed her son's bookish propensities, though it is recorded that she lived to regret having done so. The father, who by profession was master of a West Indiaman, though, in his son's words, 'one of the best as he was one of the handsomest of men,' does not appear in mind and force of character to have risen above mediocrity.

The most striking incident in the childhood of the future novelist is his association with the 'Buchanites,' a religious sect who took their name from a demented female, Mrs Buchan. It happened that this person had been much impressed by the preaching of Mr White, the Relief Minister of Irvine, and had followed him from Glasgow to that place, where some weak-headed members of the congregation mistook her ravings for inspiration, and made her warmly welcome. White himself participated in their delusion, and when authoritatively required to dismiss his adherent, chose rather to resign his church. From this time meetings would be held in a tent, generally in the night time, and there Mrs Buchan would hold forth, announcing herself to be the woman spoken of in the twelfth chapter of the Revelations, and Mr White as the man-child whom she had brought forth. The proceedings attracted public attention, rioting followed, and it was found advisable to expel the evangelists from the town. Some forty or fifty disciples accompanied their exodus, who sang as they went, and declared themselves en route for the New Jerusalem, and in the company of the crack-brained enthusiasts went the infant Galt, his imagination captivated by the strangeness of their doings. He had not proceeded far, however, ere that sensible woman, his mother, pounced upon him and bore him off home. Nevertheless the wild psalmody of the occasion abode in his memory, and when in later life, in his fine novel of Ringan Gilhaize, he came to describe the Covenanters, the recollection stood him in good stead. It is also recorded of him that, after reading Pope's Iliad, he was so deeply impressed by the book as to kneel then and there, and humbly and fervently pray that it might be vouchsafed to him to accomplish something equally great. It must not be thought, however, that in him imagination predominated to the exclusion of everything else. On the contrary, to the love of what was beautiful or strange, he united a pronounced mechanical and engineering turn, which led him, among other undertakings, to construct an Æolian harp, and to devise schemes for improving the water-supply of Greenock, the town to which his family had in the meantime removed. Thus was first manifested that diversity of faculty which enabled him in later life with equal ease to pourtray men and manners and to found cities and subdue wastes.

Meantime his education, which had been begun at home and continued at the grammar-school of Irvine, was carried on at Greenock, where it was supplemented with advantage by independent reading in a well-chosen public library. In Greenock, also, where he spent some fifteen years, he was fortunate in having as associates a group of young men whom the spirit of intellectual emulation characterised, and of whom more than one was destined to attain distinction. Among these were Eckford, who is referred to as the future architect and builder of the United States' Navy, and Spence, afterwards the author of a treatise on Logarithmic Transcendents. But undoubtedly young Galt's most congenial companion was one James Park, a youth of elegant and scholarly tastes, who shared in his passion for the belles-lettres, and criticised in a friendly spirit the attempts which he was now beginning to make as a poet. Would that this young man's influence had been exerted to greater effect, for he seems to have been just the sort of mentor of whom Galt stood in need, and whose discipline throughout life he missed! 'He seemed,' says the Autobiography, 'to consider excellence in literature as of a more sacred nature than ever I did, who looked upon it but as a means of influence.' A means of influence! One would gladly believe this but the querulous insincere utterance of a disappointed man. Unhappily evidence is but too abundant that Galt was consistently lacking in the respect due to his high calling. Among his earliest poetical efforts was a tragedy on the life of Mary Queen of Scots, and in course of time he began to contribute to the local newspaper and to the Scots Magazine. With Park and other young men he also joined in essay and debating societies, a recreation which they varied by walking-tours to Edinburgh, Loch Lomond, the Border Counties, and elsewhere. Before this time he had been placed in the Custom House at Greenock, to acquire some training as a clerk, whence in due course he was transferred to work in a mercantile office. It was the period of the resumption of the war with France, and he took a leading part in the movement for forming local companies of volunteer riflemen.

This period of his adolescence strikes one as having been unusually prolonged. It came to a sudden and violent end. It appears that about this time a set of purse-proud upstarts, who stood much in need of schooling in more ways than one, had made their appearance in Glasgow. In relation to some matter of business, one of these had addressed an insolent letter to the firm with which Galt was connected. It was delivered into his hands. On discovering its contents his indignation was boundless, and he proceeded to action with all the impetuosity of a Hotspur. Missing the writer in Glasgow, he straightway tracked him to his quarters in Edinburgh, and having bolted the door of the room in which he sat, forced from him a written apology. So much was satisfactory; but the turmoil excited in the young man's brain did not subside immediately. He did not return to his employment, but, after spending some time in an indeterminate sort of fashion, set off for London 'to look about him.' In the Autobiography, written when he was old and an invalid, all this is detailed in a loose and cursory manner. There is no reference to emotion or the inner life, and the style is that of one who, having written many books, is grown very tired of writing. To the reader this is the reverse of stimulating; yet whatever may be stated and whatever kept back, we may feel sure that, in so emotional and imaginative a man, an intense inner life must have existed, and one in all probability not of the smoothest. At the time of leaving home, however, the writer acknowledges to having felt exceedingly depressed. Then follows a description of sensations experienced, whilst horses were being changed, on the road between Greenock and Glasgow. His father accompanied him on his journey.

'I walked back on the fields,' says the young man, 'alone, with no buoyant heart. The view towards Argyleshire, from the brow of the hill, is perhaps one of the most picturesque in the world. I have since seen some of the finest scenes, but none superior. At the time it seemed as if some pensive influence rested on the mountains, and silently allured me back; and this feeling was superstitiously augmented by my happening in the same moment to turn round and behold the eastern sky, which lay in the direction of my journey, sullenly overcast. On returning to the inn, the horses had been some time in harness, and my father was a little impatient at my absence, but conjecturing what was passing in my mind, said little; nor did we speak much to each other till the waiter of the inn opened the door for us to alight at Glasgow. In truth I was not blind to the perils which awaited me, but my obstinacy was too indulgently considered.' The above reads like a passage from The Omen. In it we see the true Galt, or at least one side of him—brooding, fantastic, the devotee of mysticism, discerning, at this momentous point in his career, the finger of fate where another would have seen but an ordinary process of nature!

As to the time he now spent in London, beyond an incidental admission that it was one of the least satisfactory periods of his career, Galt does not take us into his confidence. One guesses that had he consulted his own feelings only, he would have enjoyed the luxury of writing Confessions. But, after all, he was a Scotchman, though an unusual variety of the class, and Scotchmen do not indulge in luxuries of that kind. His Autobiography, when it came to be written, was in the main a piece of book-making; certainly it has nothing of the confessional character, and, indeed, what of self-revelation he at this time supplies must be sought in his letters to Park.

He had brought with him to the metropolis a goodly number of introductions, which procured him much civility but nothing more. Whilst waiting, however, to see what was to be done for him in the shape of practical assistance, he employed himself in preparing for the press a poem which had been inspired by his studies in antiquarianism, and written some time earlier. The title of this production was The Battle of Largs, and its theme the invasion of Scotland by Haco, King of Norway, in the year 1263,—a subject which had already prompted the Titanic suggestions of Lady Wardlaw's Hardyknute. The poem, as it survives in extracts, is turgid, crude, and immature, exhibiting the exact reverse of what is desirable in poetry—to wit, a great expenditure of means to produce a very small result. For 'tis in vain we are assured that desperate deeds are doing if we find it possible to remain completely unmoved. A strain of somewhat similar kind was afterwards taken up by Motherwell, and by Tom Stoddart in the unbridled fantasy of his only half-serious 'Necromaunt,' called The Death-Wake. To do Galt justice, he quickly realised that he had mounted the wrong Pegasus, and almost immediately suppressed his poem. He acted wisely, and here once for all it may be admitted that, in the specialised sense of the term, he was no poet. Fancy, imagination, dramatic power, and many another fine attribute of the poet he of course possessed in high degree, but, whether because lacking the 'accomplishment of verse,' or for some other reason, he failed to give expression to these gifts in poetry. Metre seems to have impeded rather than assisted him, and he is most poetic when writing in prose—a conclusion suggested by the poem now under consideration, and borne out by his Star of Destiny, his posthumous Demon of Destiny, and his poetic plays. From his own frank avowal that, when drawing up a list of his works for publication, an epic[3] was overlooked, we judge that not much of the labour of the file was expended upon his verse.

He waited for some months in London, whiling away the time, as he pretends, by dabbling in astrology, alchemy, and other studies which served to feed his love of the occult, and then at last, in despair, decided to shift for himself. This led to his entering into partnership with a young Scotchman named M^cLachlan, in a business which, for reasons unknown, is mentioned only under the vague name of a 'commercial enterprise.' Whatever may have been its nature, for Galt this undertaking started badly, and after a period of better success, at the end of three years ended in bankruptcy. The precise steps by which this final consummation was reached are carefully detailed by Galt, yet to minds unversed in commercial procedure they remain very far from clear. In general terms, however, we gather that the failure was due to the dishonesty of a debtor, occurring in conjunction with a succession of financial misfortunes.

Having failed in commerce, Galt's next thought was of the Law. He entered himself of Lincoln's Inn, and whilst waiting to be formally called to the Bar, went abroad in the hope of improving his health, which was not good at the time. He tells us that by this time he had realised that, without friends, there is no such thing as 'getting on' in life possible. These he was conscious of lacking, and when he now turned his back on England it was, in his own words, half desiring that no event might occur to make him ever wish to return. He betook himself in the first instance to Gibraltar, where, in the well-known Garrison Library, he had his first glimpse of a young man whose feelings, had they been revealed, might have been found to tally strangely with his own. Lord Byron, at that time known only as the author of a mordant satire, was starting upon the tour which was so soon to make him famous, and as Galt had him and Hobhouse for fellow-travellers to Malta and Sicily, he got to know them fairly well. It is noticeable that his first impressions of the Pilgrim betray prejudice; and that long afterwards, when he was called on to be his biographer, he complains that Moore's portrait reveals only the sunny side of his lordship's character, and is 'too radiant and conciliatory.'

After visiting Malta and Sicily, Galt proceeded to Athens. His active mind, abhorring idleness, was soon at work again. It may be remembered that this was the period of Buonaparte's endeavour to enforce his nefarious Berlin and Milan Decrees, which had been designed with the object of annihilating British commerce. Our traveller now conceived the idea that they might be evaded by introducing British goods into the Continent through Turkey. And here it may be noted that his biographers have united in representing this scheme as the object of his going abroad, whereas he himself distinctly, though incidentally, states that he left England for the benefit of his health,[4] and that his scheme first occurred to him when at Tripolizza.[5] This fact, immaterial in itself, is of importance as affording evidence that his circumstances at the time were fairly easy; for his travels must have been costly, yet they do not appear to have brought him in any return until after his written account of them had been published, when he was recouped for the whole, or a part, of his outlay.

In pursuance of the newly-devised scheme, it was now his object to find a locality where a depÔt of goods might be established. For this purpose, after visiting various out of the way places, he selected Mykoni, an island of the Archipelago, which possessed an excellent harbour, where he acquired a large building, suited for a storehouse, which had originally been erected by Orloff at a time when the Empress Catherine the Second had designs on these islands. Hence, in the summer of 1810, he returned to Malta, to make known and to develope his scheme, and whilst awaiting the result of communications with England, he filled up the time with further travels, visiting Constantinople and Widdin. Turkey was now in arms against Russia, and in the course of his present journey, which was performed in wintry weather, he saw something of the hardships as well as of the pomp of war. Without presuming to question that he kept business in view—as possibly also did George Borrow in his rambles in Spain—we note the fact that in his own account of his travels the details of his specific labours are kept well in the background, if not indeed out of sight. At the worst his journeys, which led him through some singularly wild and little known parts of the globe, by bringing him acquainted with many picturesque and unusual characters, must have been rich in suggestions of adventure and romance; and, indeed, there is evidence that some of his experience of primitive and martial life acquired at this time was afterwards turned to account in painting similar life at home for his historical novels. His expectations of patronage for his project were, however, disappointed, and he resolved to return without delay to England, in the hope of there finding support for it. In the meantime literature had not been entirely neglected. Keeping his eyes well about him, he had amassed the notes on which were subsequently based his Voyages, and Letters from the Levant; whilst a translation from Goldoni, executed in a single wet day at Missolonghi, and published in the 'New British Theatre' as The Word of Honour, together with the tragedy of Maddalen, composed whilst undergoing quarantine at Messina, belong also to this time.

Back in London, he had the mortification of finding his commercial scheme—as to the presumptive value of which one would wish to have specialist opinion—regarded coldly by the Foreign Office, whilst at the same time he seems to have satisfied himself of the inutility of proceeding further in his legal career. But, whatever may have been his defects, want of resourcefulness was certainly not among them. An outburst of literary industry followed, and the year 1812 saw the publication of his Voyages and Travels, his Life of Wolsey, and his Tragedies. But in justice to one who has sins enough of slipshod composition to answer for, it must be stated that most of the Life of Wolsey—one of the most carefully composed of his books—had been written at an earlier date.

Of his Voyages and Travels in the years 1809, 1810, and 1811, containing statistical, commercial, and miscellaneous observations on Gibraltar, Sardinia, Sicily, Malta, Cerigo and Turkey, a competent critic remarks that, 'while containing some interesting matter, they are disfigured by grave faults of style and by rash judgments.' The public received them favourably, but a contemptuous notice in the Quarterly Review was warmly resented by the author.

It was whilst standing in the quadrangle of Christchurch College, when on a visit to Oxford, that Galt had conceived the idea of his Life of Wolsey. He had worked hard at the book before he went abroad, and he claimed that it embodied new views, and the results of much original research. Notwithstanding this, the Quarterly Review assailed him again, and this time so libellously as to lead him to think of a criminal prosecution. He, however, dropped the idea, with the result that when his Tragedies saw the light, the persecution—now as in the case of the Travels conducted by Croker in person—was renewed with additional pungency. In the general form of his Maddalen, Agamemnon, Lady Macbeth, Antonia, and Clytemnestra, the author followed Alfieri, whose works he had studied abroad and admired enthusiastically, though with reservations. The plays are of a tentative character, and certainly do not deserve Scott's condemnation as the 'worst ever seen.' Lady Macbeth, which the author thought the 'best or the worst' of the series, though not lacking in imaginative touches, is without progression or story, and besides provoking irresistible comparisons, fails by ending just where it began. And whilst on the subject of Galt's drama, we may mention The Witness, the most important of several plays contributed by him to the 'New British Theatre,' a publication undertaken by Colbourn at his instigation. Here the dramatist had a powerfully dramatic if also a somewhat inconsequent story to work upon—a subject, in fact, after his own heart. Unfortunately the execution of the piece is hasty, and by no means equal to its conception. It was performed for some nights in Edinburgh as The Appeal, when Scott wrote an Epilogue for it, said to be the only piece of humorous verse existing from his pen. Galt himself rehandled the subject in narrative form, under the title of The Unguarded Hour.

He now embarked on a journalistic enterprise, assuming for a time the editorship of the Political Review. But the work did not suit him. After about a month he began to tire of it, and it was soon abandoned. He also contributed lives of Hawke, Byron, and Rodney, to an edition of Campbell's Lives of the Admirals; whilst, in 1813, his Letters from the Levant made their appearance. These contain 'views of the state of society, manners, opinions, and commerce, in Greece and several of the principal islands of the Archipelago,' and had actually been written as letters at the places from which they are dated, being subsequently but little altered.

Perhaps we have already seen enough of the subject of this sketch to convince us that any lengthy perseverance in one course of conduct must not be expected of him, and, sure enough, the next thing we hear of him is that he is bound for Gibraltar, on another commercial enterprise. Before setting out, he had taken occasion to revisit the scenes of his early years, going in turn to every place which he remembered having frequented, even to the churchyard, amid whose tombstones, like his own Andrew Wylie, he had haunted as a boy. Taking stock of himself and his surroundings, he tells us that he was sensible of change everywhere, but nowhere more than in his own hopes. 'I saw that a blight had settled on them, and that my career must in future be circumscribed and sober.' When it is remembered that he was now touching upon what is called the prime of life, his tone of disillusion is pathetic.

He had gone to Gibraltar as the emissary of Kirkman Finlay—a Glasgow merchant, who afterwards bore a spirited part in the Greek War of Independence—with a view to ascertain the feasibility of smuggling British goods into Spain. But the victories of the Duke of Wellington in the Peninsula were unfavourable to his mission, and much against his will he found himself compelled to return to England, having accomplished nothing, to seek surgical treatment for a painful malady from which he was now suffering. Whilst in London he was married, his wife being the daughter of a Dr Tilloch, editor of the Philosophical Magazine, to which Galt was an occasional contributor. His marriage was a very happy one, and on the principle, perhaps, that the happiest countries have no history, his married life is not referred to in the biographies. In 1814, at the time of the Restoration in France, we find him visiting Holland and that country, with a view to promote yet another 'abortive scheme.'

It had now become imperative that he should exert himself, and having, as one may say, nothing better to do on his return from the Continent, he resumed the labours of the pen. His first known work of fiction was the result. It was entitled The Majolo, founded upon a Sicilian superstition, and published anonymously in 1816. It was a favourite with its author, and has been described as a 'strange flighty production, enjoyed only by a few peculiar minds.' With it may be mentioned The Earthquake, a three-volume novel written in 1820, and founded on the Messina earthquake of 1783. The latter, though an extravagant and ill-constructed story, is said to describe Sicilian habits and sentiments with accuracy. The Majolo was followed in the same year by the earlier instalment of a Life of Benjamin West, compiled from materials supplied by the painter himself—a work which was completed four years later, after his death. Then the eternal commercial scheme cropped up again. This time it emanated from Glasgow, leading Galt to move with his family to Finnart, near Greenock, where he spent a period afterwards characterised as the most unsatisfactory in his whole life. As usual the scheme in which he was interested failed, and he returned to London, having accepted employment from the Union Canal Company, in order to assist the passing through Parliament of a bill promoted by that body. This being accomplished, he returned to the drudgery of the desk, and, first and last, turned out a portentous body of hack-work, the various items of which need not be catalogued. Fortunately for himself, if not always for his reader, he had the strength and insouciance under labour of what he physically was, a giant. Among the tasks performed at this time were the fascinating, if fabulous, Pictures from English, Scottish, and Irish History; The Wandering Jew, described as a 'conglomerate of history, biography, travel, and descriptive geography,' and a collection of 'All the Voyages round the World'—the last issued under the pen-name of Samuel Prior.

This record of futile commercial enterprise, varied by uninspiring literary work, constitutes dull reading; fortunately a happier period is now reached. In 1820, Mr Blackwood accepted The Ayrshire Legatees for his magazine, and this book proved to be Galt's first real literary success. Perhaps it is also the first deliberate attempt in our literature to delineate, for their own sake, contemporary Scottish manners and character. It will be seen that the mechanism of the story, though of the simplest, is well contrived for supplying to these the necessary relief. Dr Pringle, the minister of a secluded rural parish in Ayrshire, having to his surprise been appointed residuary legatee of a wealthy Indian cousin deceased, betakes himself to London to attend to his affairs in person. He is accompanied by his wife and family—the latter consisting of a son just called to the Scottish bar, and a daughter. The Scottish characters are thus detached against an English background, and the letters in which they describe their experiences in the metropolis to their several correspondents at home make up the staple of the book. The characters of this little group—of the simple, but truly pious and kind-hearted minister, with his sturdy presbyterianism and quaint traditional phraseology of the pulpit; of that notable managing woman his spouse, like whom there was not another within the jurisdiction of the Synod of Glasgow and Ayr; and of the really able and acute young advocate, with his Scottish magniloquence, and his pose as a man of the world even whilst betraying his inexperience—all these are well conceived and well drawn, their unconscious self-revelation being cleverly and naturally managed. The high-flown and romantic young lady, who so soon adapts herself to her new circumstances, though a pleasing enough portrait, is less distinctively Scottish than the rest. Fragments of narrative interpolated among the letters serve to introduce us to the audience before whom these are read out, and at the same time to present a second series of slighter, though not less racy, character-sketches. The hint of the book, with its unanswered correspondence, is obviously drawn from Humphrey Clinker, and, as in that masterpiece, real persons and events—such as the funeral of George the Third and the trial of Queen Caroline, Braham the singer and Sir Francis Burdett—supply much of the epistolary subject-matter. As in Smollett's novel, too, the same subjects are at times discussed in turn by the different writers—a plan which, though it serves the purpose of contrasting character, is not entirely free from objection.

The Ayrshire Legatees was followed in the next year by the yet more original Annals of the Parish. The history of the growth of this book is identical with that of Waverley—it had been begun years before, laid aside, and then resumed and completed—only that Galt has told us that his reason for discontinuing it was that he had been assured that a Scotch novel had no chance of success—an assurance which the case of Waverley has proved untrue. The Annals stands in somewhat the same relation to Scott's novel as does a Dutch to an Italian masterpiece, a tale of Crabbe's to an Elizabethan tragedy. It is given out as an account of the ministry of Micah Balwhidder, parish priest of Dalmailing (Dreghorn), written by himself. Mr Balwhidder had happened to be inducted on the very day on which King George the Third came to the throne; and, irrespective of its merit as a work of fiction, his narrative possesses real historical value as a record of the progress of a rural parish during the half-century succeeding that event. Indeed, with some omissions, the book might almost be printed as an appendix to the old Statistical Account of the parishes of Scotland, drawn up by the ministers. When rumours of great events—such as the American War of Independence or the French Revolution—reach the secluded hamlet, their sound is softened and their influence subdued. But the records of such local matters as floods and bad seasons, improvement of land, making of roads and planting of hedges, development of mineral resources, and so on, are also in their degree the stuff of which history is made, and as here set down they are worthy the attention of an Arthur Young. Then we are incidentally informed of the fluctuations of prices, of the rise of new industries, and the change of fashions—information which to the ordinary novel-reader would appear dry, but for the human and personal interest by which it is pervaded. For the history of the parishioners is interwoven with that of the parish, and over the whole is cast the charm of the kindly Doric and the simple and guileless personality of the minister. In theory an uncompromising stickler for orthodoxy of doctrine, and a terror to evil-doers in the abstract, Mr Balwhidder's instinct is wiser than his creed, and where the two are at variance the stronger insensibly gains the day. The tone of his fragmentary narrative is of itself proof sufficient of his fatherly interest in his villagers. And among those villagers, or at least within the narrow bounds of his parish, he can exhibit a sufficiently motley and picturesque variety in character and the experience of life. First of all we have Lord Eaglesham, the kind landlord, genial gentleman and free liver; Mr Cayenne, the irascible business-man, whose bark is worse than his bite, and Lady Macadam, the flighty and high-handed Great Lady of the old school. Then there is Mrs Malcolm, the pattern widow left with a large young family, her son Charles, the frank sailor, and her handsome daughter Kate; old Nanse Banks, the school-mistress, and her more advanced successor, Miss Sabrina Hookey; Colin Mavis, the youthful poet; the labourer who deserts his slatternly wife and family in order to enlist; the 'naturals,' Jenny Gaffaw and her fantastic ill-fated daughter; pious Mizy Mirkland, and many more. And if these figures be not drawn life-size and set direct in the reader's eye, it is for the sake of artistic keeping: the book is deliberately pitched in a lower key than the ordinary novel, and its persons are shown to us, as it were, afar off. But, none the less, every history is life-like, every character consistent within itself—living as with the life of those real people who flourished before our time, and of whom we have all of us heard in fireside stories as children. In this respect the author's aim is perfectly realised, and his work is a perfect work of art.

As is the Annals to ministerial and parochial life, so is The Provost (published in the following year) to the life of magistrates and municipalities. Yet a greater contrast to the ingenuous pastor of Dalmailing than that presented by the long-headed Provost of the Royal Burgh of Gudetown it would be almost impossible to conceive. Either of the two, in fact, presents a happy illustration of the respective shares of personality and environment in the formation of character: each is in part God's work, in part the world's. But it is in the magistrate that the world has the larger share. Provost Pawkie, who is Galt's masterpiece in the delineation of character, is worldly wisdom incarnate. Entering public life at a period when jobbery and corruption are rife, he simply takes the world as he finds it, and turns it to the best account he can. Only, as nature has endowed him with a sharper wit than his brother bailies and councillors, he is enabled to tread the paths of policy to much better advantage than they, whilst in the midst of very questionable transactions retaining the appearance of clean hands. A fortunate geniality of temper, which is partly the cause and partly the result of his prosperity, keeps him even at the worst from entirely forfeiting our regard; while, strange as it may seem, the warmth and rightness of his feeling in public or private matters where his own interest is not concerned prove that his heart remains unperverted by the element in which he works. As time goes on, the public life around him becomes purer, and he himself keeps pace with the times. Is this because he has seen the error of his ways, and like all people who are good in the main grows better as he grows older; or is it merely the result of policy trimming his sails to catch the popular breeze? Perhaps the balance of the doubt is in his favour; yet assuredly he is far too clear-sighted to persevere in methods which have become publicly discredited. Galt's artistic instinct was too true to allow him to make perfectly clear to us all the workings of so subtle a mind; but the worthy cloth-mercer himself stands before us to the life, shrewd, portly, and consequential, with the redeeming twinkle of a dry Scotch humour in his eye and a racy Scotticism on his lip.

As in the Annals of the Parish, so in The Provost a chronicle of external progress forms the background to the narrator's experiences, and in the latter case this chronicle deals with improvements in the burgh, sanitary enactments, paving and lighting, repairing the Tolbooth steeple, and so forth. These affairs, though in their own way typical also, are of narrower interest than the changes in a countryside, but their inferiority in this respect is more than made up for by such admirable passages of interpolated narrative as, for instance, those which describe the execution of Jean Gaisling for child-murder, the Windy Yule with its disasters on the sea and heart-break on land, the duel, and the visit of the press-gang, or, in humorous vein, the fracas with the strolling players in the change-house, and the incident of the supposed French spy.

Few writers have possessed a greater native gift of story-telling than Galt, and few, it must alas! be added have used their gift more carelessly. In the very slightest of his numberless tales, traces of this gift are apt to appear, and perhaps in none of his writings is it seen to greater advantage than in the incidental reminiscences of The Provost. But, in fact, this little book possesses the merit, so rare among our author's writings, of perfection as an artistic whole. In reviewing Galt we are too apt to find ourselves driven to the naÏve conclusion of the man in the anecdote, 'that the work would have been better if the craftsman had taken more pains.' But in this case he either did take more trouble than usual, or else, which is more likely, his inspiration was better sustained.

The period now under consideration may be defined as that of Galt's masterpieces; yet even now a slight decline in his workmanship begins to be manifest. In the same year with The Provost, he published The Steamboat, and Sir Andrew Wylie, thus already betraying a tendency to over-write. The Steamboat consists mainly of an account of the experiences of one Thomas Duffle, burgess of the Saltmarket, at the Coronation of George the Fourth—which is described in detail—the said experiences being couched in the racy autobiographical style already familiar to readers of The Provost, and relieved by a series of short stories supposed to be related by Duffle's fellow-travellers. In many of these stories—and notably in those told by the Sailor Boy and the Soldier's Mother, in Deucalion of Kentucky and The Dumbie's Son—Galt's powers are seen to advantage. Unfortunately their effect is marred by the singularly ill-conceived and irritating device on the part of the author of 'leaving off at the most interesting point.' In a single instance this trick might have been tolerated, but the reader loses patience when he finds it repeated again and again. This, however, is but a single example out of many which might be cited from Galt's writings of his propensity to ill-timed joking, and his seeming inability to take his own work seriously.

It has been asserted that, of all Galt's novels, Sir Andrew Wylie was the most popular south of the Tweed. If this was so, its popularity was due far less to intrinsic desert than to the accident that a great part of the action of the story takes place in England, whilst the principal actors—among whom is included a portrait of Lord Blessington—instead of belonging to the Scottish lower or middle classes, are members of the English aristocracy. A success based upon such grounds as these has of course no real value, and besides being of tedious length, the novel in question falls in other ways far short of the author's best achievements. Andrew Wylie is intended as the type of the canny young Scot who goes up to London and makes his fortune. We see him first as a queer 'auld-farrant' urchin, and then as an eident thrifty youth. He fully means to get on, he has the sharpest of eyes to see on which side his bread is buttered, and, above all, he has none of the ordinary failings of youth, and sows no wild oats. In fact he is rich in all those serviceable qualities of which perhaps the perfect exemplar in real life is no Scot but the Yankee Benjamin Franklin, and he has a quaint vein of native humour thrown in. And yet, notwithstanding so many qualities and so few infirmities, he is no prig, but, like Franklin, compels not only our respect, but our liking. So far the author has done well. But when he goes on to describe 'Wheelie's' rise in the world, we feel that the means of his advancement are altogether too phenomenal. With such a friend as the Earl to help him, what young man might not have risen? But this is only a single instance of his luck. Throughout his career, the hero meets with the consistent and amazing good-fortune of a prince in a fairy-tale, making conquests at first sight not only of lackadaisical Riversdales and scatter-brain Dashingwells, but of the King and of Pitt himself. And so, as the story progresses, its improbability increases, until in the scenes between Andrew and the dowager, and Andrew and the baronet, it becomes flatly and absolutely incredible. In this particular—I mean in the entire disproportion between the effect produced by the hero upon the reader and that which he is supposed to exercise on the other characters in the book—the story shares the fundamental defect of another Scottish novel, the work of a much more pains-taking hand—The Little Minister.

Galt's next publication of importance was The Entail—a novel of which the theme is 'gear,' a Scotsman's pertinacity in gathering it, and his tenacity in holding it when gathered—a matchless subject for the illustration of national character. And in this case the mere desire of acquisition is elevated and to some extent humanised by being associated with another characteristic passion of the Scot—to wit, the pride of family. The story turns upon the disinheriting, for estate reasons, by Claud Walkinshaw, Laird of Grippy, of his eldest son, and on the events which spring therefrom. Walkinshaw, who is the representative of an old but ruined family, has been brought up in penury, but at an early age has set before himself as his aim in life the reconquest of the family estates. Towards this object every step he takes is directed; in its interest every secondary consideration is sacrificed. His youth has been spent in haggling as a pedlar, and when, having by his own exertions established himself in trade, he decides to marry, he goes, of course, 'where money is.' His firstborn, Charles, is his favourite son; but even paternal affection must give way before the ruling passion. Watty, the second son (a masterly sketch) has been a 'natural' from his birth. But he is heir to the estate of his maternal grandfather, and it is only through a transaction depending on the possession of this property that a Walkinshaw can be reinstated in possession of the undiminished Walkinshaw estates. To these circumstances Charles is without hesitation sacrificed, and his father's dream seems at last to be realised. But, though he has gained his point, the old man finds himself further than ever from contentment. The stars in their courses seem to fight against him, the consequences of his unjust act recoil upon him, and he is even driven to believe himself an object of heavenly vengeance. Thus—in his character as a father visited by retributive justice through his children—Claud Walkinshaw may be considered the PÈre Goriot of Scottish fiction. And so far the book is fine; but unfortunately, from this point—about midway—the level of excellence is not sustained. In the midst of his woes, Claud is carried off by a shock of paralysis; but the evil he has done lives after him, thus supplying material for the remainder of the novel. But the calculating business-man, the youngest of the three brothers, who now succeeds to the role of principal character, is colourless in comparison with his father. The writing, too, though relieved by the delightful sallies of the 'Leddy Grippy'—one of the very best of Scotchwomen in fiction—becomes diffuse to such a point that we wax impatient for the expiation of the old man's misdeeds by his disinterested grandson. Both Scott and Byron are said to have read this book three times, but the modern reader will probably rest content with a single perusal.

Its shortcomings notwithstanding, The Entail was favourably received, and by this time the author is said to have been so elated by success as to boast that his literary resources were far greater than those of Scott, or any other contemporary.[6] Whether in deliberate rivalry or not, certain it is that, by turning his attention to the historical romance, he now entered the field which the Wizard had made particularly his own. In the meantime he had taken up his abode at Esk Grove, near Musselburgh, where, in possible emulation of Abbotsford, he is said to have contemplated building a 'veritable fortress,' exactly in the fashion of the oldest times of rude warfare.

The results of his bold literary enterprise were seen in Ringan Gilhaize, The Spaewife, and Rothelan—the first two published in 1823, the third in the following year. In an article from the pen of Mr Francis Espinasse, in the Dictionary of National Biography, these books are disposed of as 'three forgotten novels'; but the description lacks discrimination. Forgotten, for aught I know to the contrary, they may be; but at least one of the three deserved a happier fate. Ringan Gilhaize is, in fact, a very fine historical romance, and one, it may be said in passing, which would well repay resuscitation at the hands of some enterprising publisher. A happy instinct had directed Galt in his selection of a period which is certainly the most important, as it is one of the two most romantically interesting, in Scottish history. For though the War of Independence be the darling theme of Scottish patriotism, what I may call the War of Religious Liberty enjoys the two-fold advantage of a wider sympathy and a deeper intellectual significance. Galt has skilfully conducted us through the entire period of this struggle, for his story, opening during the regency of Marie of Lorraine, concludes with the battle of Killiecrankie, whilst of intermediate historical events which bear upon the main issue, the greater number receive some notice in passing. Of course the danger of such a proceeding is lest fiction become subordinate to fact, thus making the main interest of the book an historical rather than an imaginative one. But this danger Galt has cleverly avoided. His method is to bring bygone times home to us through the imagination—as, for instance, in the scene of the gathering of devout persons in Gilhaize's house, or the open air preaching near Lasswade—whilst at the same time quickening our interest in historical occurrences—such as the battle of Drumclog, or the march of the Covenanting forces to Edinburgh—by causing his imaginary characters to participate in them. This, I conceive to be the true philosophy of the historical romance. And into the spirit of the particular movement with which he deals, it must be acknowledged that Galt has penetrated further than Scott. For the true aim of the writer of a novel treating of these times in Scotland was obviously to disregard such a non-essential as sporadic insincerity, to penetrate the outer crust of dourness and intolerance, and whilst maintaining the balance of perfect fairness, to compel the reader to sympathise with the best of the Covenanters, not only in their bitter resentment of cruel wrongs, but in their most earnestly cherished and loftiest ideals. And this, which Scott did not care to do, Galt has accomplished, in virtue of which achievement his book is entitled to rank as the epic of the Scottish religious wars.

In attempting to embrace within the compass of a single novel the one hundred and thirty years or so of his period, the author of Ringan Gilhaize was certainly assaying a very hazardous experiment. For one thing, of course it was necessary that he should change his hero more than once, and the risk by so doing of dispersing and losing the reader's interest was immense. But whilst by taking the family instead of the individual as his unit, he has preserved artistic consistency, from this danger he has escaped unscathed. For from the time of the mission of Michael Gilhaize to St Andrews, and his adventures with the wanton Madam Kilspinnie, to that of the death of Claverhouse by the hand of the half-deranged or 'illuminated' Ringan, the interest of the story never flags. It abounds in fascinating passages of adventure—such as the journey of the elder Gilhaize to Eglinton, or the wanderings of Ringan and Mr Witherspoon after the fight at Rullion Green; whilst, having already referred to an advantage possessed by Galt over Scott, I may here add that there are passages in this book evincing a literary style, an intensity, and a delicacy with which Sir Walter could not compete. Such is the passage describing Gilhaize's reflections whilst waiting, in the grey of morning, at the gate of Lord James Stuart's house; the passage which follows, describing the spreading of the news that John Knox has arrived in Edinburgh, and that which describes the dalliance of the Queen of Scots with the Reformer on Loch Leven shore. That Scott was a far greater writer, as he was a far happier man than his contemporary, no reviewer in his senses would venture to deny. But that Galt possessed qualities which Scott did not possess, though less freely acknowledged, is not less true. When the number and extent of his works is considered, it must be owned that the occasions upon which Galt puts forth his full powers, or allows us to praise him without reserve, are sadly few. All the more reason, therefore, that when he does give us such an opportunity, we should avail ourselves of it with courage and without stint! It now only remains to add that the book is written in clear and terse old Scots, to which a dash of the peculiar phraseology of the Reformed Church adds a touch of quaintness.

'Surely something must have come over Galt!' is one's involuntary exclamation on reading his next book, for a greater falling off from Ringan Gilhaize than The Spaewife can scarcely be imagined. Here even the writing is slipshod; but, alas! these ups and downs are but too characteristic of the author. Like the former work, in the cabals and factions of the rival claimants—or, more properly, aspirants—to the Crown of Scotland during the reign of James the First, The Spaewife has a promising and powerful theme. But of the treatment of this theme it may be said that it can boast scarcely one redeeming feature. The conduct of the tale is involved and obscure, and abounds in incidents and dialogues which, while tedious and perplexing in themselves, serve neither to illustrate character nor to advance action. Indeed, the reader is heavily taxed to remember the motives and the relations with one another of the different persons presented. Nor is the book appreciably stronger in the department of character-drawing. Upon the poet-king, the romantic ill-fated lover of Joanna Beaufort, one would suppose that a novelist might delight to lavish his best art. Instead of this, the King and Queen of the story are mere blanks. Catherine Douglas is no better, and such originality in character-sketching as the book can show—and that is not much—is to be found in the portraits of Glenfruin, the deep though simple-seeming Highland chieftain, and of the timorous and vacillating Earl of Athol.

Rothelan, a tale of the times of Edward the Third—the historical portions of which are drawn from an interesting work on that period written by Joshua Barnes, an antiquary of the seventeenth century—is unfortunately more nearly on the level of The Spaewife than on that of Ringan Gilhaize. The book is not wanting in spirited scenes, but the welding of history and romance is but imperfectly accomplished, notwithstanding an abuse of breaks and gaps, abrupt transitions and passages irrelevant to the main narrative. Then again, between the machinations of the conscience-haunted Amias and his inscrutable henchman Ralph, and the counter-machinations of the wily Adonijah, the intricacies of the tale are so much too subtle as to end in puzzling the reader himself. In a passage which may perhaps have been intended as a sly hit at Scott, the author expressly disclaims any attempt to reanimate the 'scenes of chivalry, and the pride, pomp, and panoply of war,' or to restore the archaic language, or the 'fashions of the draperies, or the ornaments and architecture in the background.' His concern, he tells us, is not with such subordinate matters as these, but directly with the human heart itself. For a poet or novelist the position is a perfectly tenable one, and it is not to this but to the fact that he lets us see that he does not take his work seriously, that the author's failure is due. For into his lighter scenes an element of burlesque, which had already peeped out in his last book, again obtrudes itself; and burlesque, though a capital thing in its way, is here entirely out of place. Neither could it under any circumstances be supposed by a writer of historical fiction that the illusion which it is his business to produce would be assisted by discussion of such topics current at the time of writing as Sir Walter Scott's Redgauntlet, or the question of the three-volume novel.

As under favourable conditions there is perhaps no form of labour more delightful than literary work, so there can be none more sickening when it is half-hearted or against the grain. Galt had now produced two novels in succession in which it was but too apparent that his heart was not, and he may well have felt weary of the work. Or their languor may have been due to the fact that his interest had been drawn off in another direction. At any rate, after a long and—if we judge it by its best productions—an extremely brilliant spell at his desk, he now practically abandoned it for some years to come. Well had it been, not only for his best interests, but for his material happiness, had he remained where he was!

The immediate occasion of this change in his life was as follows:—It happened that some of the principal inhabitants of Canada, whose property had sustained damage in the American War of 1814, had recently become urgent in their claims for compensation from the mother country. As the result of 'proceedings' on which the Autobiography throws no light, Galt was commissioned to act as agent in this country for the injured parties, which commission he accepted, undaunted by the worry and demands upon his time which it must necessarily entail, and set zealously to work to get the claims allowed by the Treasury. He gained his point subject to conditions, it being agreed by Government that the demands of the claimants should be satisfied from the proceeds of the sale of certain Crown lands in Canada known as the 'reserves.' To find purchasers for this land now became Galt's object, and mainly through his instrumentality the 'Canada Company' was formed. But in the meantime, the inhabitants of Upper Canada, among whom party spirit ran unusually high, having prejudiced their case with Government, it was determined that the money realised by selling the reserves should be devoted to other purposes. Thus Galt found himself defeated in his object, and in this juncture he was persuaded to join the Canada Company as a member. He was then appointed a Commissioner to determine the value of the land to be purchased by the Company, and having crossed the Atlantic, he proceeded to York, the capital of Upper Canada, where the Commission prosecuted its enquiries. His health at the time was bad, but his task was congenial. From boyhood he had nourished a hankering after colonisation, and if we abate a few comparatively trifling dissensions, his experiences at this time seem on the whole to have been agreeable. In due course the Commissioners signed their report and returned to England, only to receive the news that their labours had been unexpectedly complicated by action taken by the Canadian clergy in relation to the 'clergy reserves.' After some difficulty this matter also was at length adjusted, and the Company having obtained its Charter, Galt was deputed to return to Canada to superintend the founding of the new colony. Whilst the affairs above-mentioned had been under discussion, he had, however, found time to produce The Omen and The Last of the Lairds, two small but admirable works in contrasted styles.

Indeed, the sustained excellence of the former suffices to constitute it his masterpiece in the purely tragic vein. It is likewise in all probability his most characteristic work, its unique and special claim to attention consisting in the tense and lurid imaginative atmosphere which the author has created and made to pervade his tale. Availing himself of the autobiographical convention, and assuming a fantastic dramatic guise, he gives the rein to his fancy and roams at large in a world that is dominated by those presentiments, bodings, and subtle hidden relations of things, which had always exercised so powerful a fascination over his mind. And yet—what is of vital importance in the effect which he obtains—these portents are never allowed to lead us away from the firm earth, or from actual life. From the very first the reader is brought under the potent spell of the author's imagination, and so perfect is the art that ever as the dark tale unfolds the author's grip gains in strength. There are passages of fervid and gloomy eloquence in the writing which recall nothing in literature so much as Chateaubriand's masterpiece, and it is notable that, whilst in other respects the two stories are entirely distinct, the mysterious and repellent point on which they turn is one. RenÉ was almost pure autobiography, and it is plain to those who have studied Galt's more intimate utterances that into The Omen he threw much of what was moody and fantastic in his own mind and personality.

The Last of the Lairds is a pleasant comedy of old Scotch manners, rich in the masterly painting of old Scotch character. The plot turns on the making up by busybodies of a match between a withered spinster and an elderly, partly imbecile, and ruined landlord—the threatened ugliness of the theme being averted by a gaiety rare in Galt's work, and also—as in the case of some of Hogarth's pictures—by sheer skill and power displayed in the characterisation. The contrasted meddlers, the bride and her sister, the Nabob, and the Laird's Jock are all of them capital; whilst the Laird himself, though failing to attain the breadth and dignity proper to a type, is at least a good and by no means ungenial portrait. The change wrought in him by marriage, if surprising, is not incredible, and serves to pave the way for the welcome happy ending. This book, which was left incomplete by Galt when he returned to America, received some finishing touches from his friend Moir, though the hand of the latter cannot be said to be traceable in its pages.

Late in the year 1826, the author returned to Canada, having already, by his own account, some grounds for believing that he was regarded with hostility. Whether these suspicions were purely morbid or not it is impossible to say, but a general consideration of his fitness for the work to which he had chosen to devote his life may not be out of place. There is every reason to believe that he was afterwards harshly and unjustly used; yet judging solely from what he himself has told of himself, one must allow that he was not precisely the sort of man to select for the discharge of important public business. That his ability was extraordinary, and his power of work immense, has been amply established; none the less does it remain true that in certain qualities not less essential to business he was positively defective. Morbidly sensitive, he lacked the wisdom to control his feelings under a sense of injury, and was too much inclined to form conclusions, and to act, upon impulse. In addition to this, imagination or fancy—of which, in a world constituted as ours is, the mere suspicion will often suffice to prejudice a man in his dealings with his fellow-men—was far too active a power in his brain. But, to leave such considerations as are grounded upon character and revert to substantial facts, what was the assumption from Galt's previous history as a man of business? That history reveals a goodly number of schemes and of attempts, scarce one of which but had proved abortive or a failure. Surely, if he was in truth a competent business man, ill-luck must have pursued him with uncommon pertinacity; and even allowing this to have been the case, he will still stand condemned as a wretched judge of the chances of success inherent in any given business concern. The years at which we have now arrived were the most momentous in his life as a man; but in a sketch of his literary career, such as the present, their place is subordinate.

Haunted by presentiments of evil even at the time of leaving home, Galt had scarcely reached Canada when his troubles began. In fact his differences with Sir Peregrine Maitland, the Lieutenant-Governor of the province, date from the morning after his arrival. Of this disagreement it is sufficient to say that Galt was not the aggressor, though very likely his previous conduct had been less wary than behoved for one in his delicate position. Certainly, with all due sympathy for a much-suffering man of genius, it cannot be asserted that his temperament was one calculated to smooth away difficulties, or, where self-love was concerned, to carry him pleasantly out of a misunderstanding. The Governor, besides suspecting him of unfriendliness to the Government, was jealous of a supposed inclination to interfere in public matters outside his sphere; and though these suspicions were alike groundless, it unfortunately happened that a communication which Galt had addressed to the editor of an opposition journal afforded a specific ground of complaint. Here, at once, were all the materials for a very pretty quarrel.

A visit to Quebec, however, brought more agreeable experiences, social and adventurous. Thence Galt proceeded to York, to commence the duties of his mission. He was now practically in sole charge of the business of the Company, but he seems to have felt quite equal to his responsibilities, and when winter was over he decided to begin operations by founding a city in the Company's territory. Determined to clothe the occasion with as much impressiveness as possible, and having selected St George's Day as an auspicious date, he accordingly travelled to the appointed site—the last nine miles of the journey lying within the primeval forest. Here is his account of the proceedings:—

The name was chosen in compliment to the Royal Family. To matter-of-fact minds the characteristic tone of this passage may appear dangerously poetical, so perhaps it is well to add that the site of the new city had been most judiciously chosen. Occupying a tongue of land projecting into a river, almost in the centre of the district which separates the lakes of Ontario, Simcoe, Huron, and Erie, the infant township enjoyed extraordinary facilities for communication. It became prosperous, and within the space of forty-five years its population had reached the total of 50,000.

Galt now threw himself with great zeal and energy into his work, which was on a grand scale and of a stimulating character, and, besides the founding of cities, included the felling of forests, exploration, and the naming of places unnamed. To a voyage undertaken for the purpose of finding a harbour on Lake Huron, was due the origin of the now flourishing city of Goderich. Of course the romance of this sort of life, together with the sense it gave him of playing an important part in the spread of civilisation, were agreeable and flattering to Galt; but in other respects his position was not without drawbacks. Those symptoms of troubles to come which had so early presented themselves to him had by no means disappeared; whilst, as he assures us, secret enemies were also at work against him. There were not wanting signs of friction between the Government and the Directors of the Company, the stock of the latter fell to a discount, and the Directors thereupon taxed their Commissioner with extravagance in the carrying out of his plans. He began to find himself subjected to petty annoyances, and at this time an incident in which he had humanely, but perhaps injudiciously, befriended some helpless emigrants served further to embroil matters.

In this juncture, he received a private warning to expect a reprimand from his Directors. No doubt there were faults on both sides, but conscious that he had done his best, and smarting under the injustice of being assumed unheard to be in fault, he placed his resignation in the hands of a friend. The friend, however, decided not to present it, and Galt therefore continued his labours as before, evincing an astonishing fertility in projects and ideas, of which we may suppose a fair proportion to have been applicable enough to his circumstances. Unfortunately causes of annoyance continued to flow in upon him, and it was evident that a climax was not far off.

The spectacle now afforded by the Autobiography is a melancholy one. It is that of a gifted and generous-minded, though unduly irritable, man-of-letters entangled in toils of red-tape, and in the meantime exposed to the darts of his enemies. In such a contest—though in some respects Galt was a giant pitted against pigmies—it was a foregone conclusion that he must come off second-best. Matters were precipitated by the Directors appointing an accountant to assist him in his duties. The conduct of this person supplied grounds for a belief that he was authorised to exercise surveillance over the Superintendent, and such a position being intolerable, Galt resolved to return to England. Indeed he found himself driven to the conclusion that it was intended to break up the Company, and that his own removal from office would be a step towards that end. Unfortunately he was destined to undergo treatment even less agreeable than that which he anticipated. Circumstances having compelled him to defer his return to England, he paid a final visit to Goderich, and had arrived at New York on his homeward journey when he was informed that he had been superseded. As he had been on the point of retiring from the service, his material position remained practically unaffected. But his resignation, if indeed it were irrevocably determined on, had certainly not been publicly announced, and to a man of his temperament it must have been gall and wormwood to have forcibly taken from him even though 'twere but that which he was ready to resign. No wonder that he felt himself to have been treated with the vilest ingratitude. 'The Canada Company,' he writes, 'had originated in my suggestions, it was established by my endeavours, organised in disregard of many obstacles by my perseverance, and, though extensive and complicated in its scheme, a system was formed by me upon which it could be with ease conducted. Yet without the commission of any fault, for I dare every charge of that kind, I was destined to reap from it only troubles and mortifications, and something which I feel as an attempt to disgrace me.'[7]

The writer of the article, before referred to, in the Dictionary of National Biography has spoken of the Autobiography as 'remarkable for self-complacency.' It is, therefore, only fair to state that the value which Galt puts upon his own services as a colonial organiser is not unsupported by testimony from without. The report of a local expert, incorporated in Galt's narrative, testifies not only to the intrinsic excellence of his system, but to the success attending it; whilst an address of gratitude and good wishes presented by the settlers in the new city bears witness to the personal estimation in which they held him. Indeed one of the main causes of his failure seems to have been that he took too high a view of his own mission, aspiring to aim at the good of humanity, where his associates and principals were content to contemplate gain: a Quixote set to perform the work of a Board composed of Sancho Panzas. Even at this date, had he been informed at once that his dismissal must be regarded as final, he would have been spared some suffering. But his agony—the term is scarcely an exaggeration—was prolonged by suspense and by unavailing struggles. And finally, as if anything were yet wanting to complete the irony of his position, he lived to see the Company which he had himself founded, and in the service of which three of the best years of his life had been spent, develop into a flourishing concern, yielding abundant profits in which he had no share.

Misfortunes come not singly, and the fall of the lion is the opportunity of meaner creatures. The determining of his connection with the Canada Company had hit Galt severely in his pecuniary circumstances. He now found himself unable to meet the claims which were made upon him, and at the suit of a certain Dr Valpy of Reading, one of the oldest of his English acquaintances, to whom he owed the paltry sum of £80 for the education of his sons, he was presently arrested. Conscious as he was of unimpeachable probity of intention, and marking, as in his Utopian way he did, a distinction between law and justice, he felt this last indignity keenly. He, however, made no sign, but endured with imperturbable stoicism a long period of confinement. None the less—partly by the physical restraint to which he was so little accustomed, partly, as he himself with only too much show of probability suggests, by distress of mind—his constitution was irreparably injured. He was now entirely dependent on his pen, and though his literary activity continued as great as before, the literary fruits which he put forth had lost the fineness of their old savour. Of this he seems to have been aware, for he has put on record the fact that his later novels were written to please the public, not himself, and that he would not wish to be estimated by them. For our purpose, therefore, a hasty glance at them may suffice.

In 1830 he published Lawrie Todd, a tale of life in the backwoods, which, with Bogle Corbet, or The Emigrants, (1831), was founded upon fact, and designed by the author to serve the double purpose of amusing the general reader and conveying reliable information to those practically interested in the American colonies. Southennan, a tale of the days of Mary Queen of Scots, also published in 1830, was inspired by the tradition associated with a romantic old mansion-house, which had impressed Galt's fancy in youth. In the same year he also produced his Life of Byron, of which—so keen was public interest in the subject at the time—three editions were exhausted in as many months. The author's view of the noble poet's character has been already indicated; his work has, however, been pronounced 'valueless.' About this time he also acted as editor of The Courier, a Tory newspaper; but, finding the work uncongenial, after a few months abandoned it. In 1831, by way of a change of employment, at the suggestion of Lockhart, who was always a good friend to him, he put together his amusing Lives of the Players. In the same year he took up his abode at Brompton—a suburb in those days not yet absolutely devoid of the charms of the country—where for some three or four years to come he occupied Old Barnes Cottage, a somewhat dilapidated building, but one which possessed the invaluable appendage of a large and pleasant garden.

It was at this time that Carlyle met him at a dinner-party at the house of Fraser, the publisher, and wrote a description of him. But before quoting this sketch, we may give that of Moir, penned some eight years earlier. At that time, according to the Doctor's testimony, Galt was 'in the full vigour of health,' a man of herculean frame, over six feet in height and inclining to corpulency, with jet-black hair as yet ungrizzled, nose almost straight, small but piercing eyes, and finely rounded chin. When Carlyle saw him, trouble had already told upon him. 'Galt looks old,' he writes,[8] 'is deafish, has the air of a sedate Greenock burgher; mouth indicating sly humour and self-satisfaction; the eyes, old and without lashes, gave me a sort of wae interest for him.... Said little, but that little peaceable, clear and gutmÜthig. Wish to see him again.' This account he supplemented a month later as follows: 'A broad gawsie Greenock man, old-growing, lovable with pity.'

The need for pity soon increased. It has been stated that Galt's health had suffered from his confinement, it was about this time further affected by the first of a long series of shocks, which are described as of a nature 'analogous to paralysis.' This sufficed to destroy such hopes of active employment as remained to him—and he had been, as usual, hard at work weaving schemes with all his former ingenuity—and in process of time reduced him to a wreck. Still he clung to his pen, adding to the already lengthy list of his works the novel of Stanley Buxton, or The Schoolfellows, as well as two political satires entitled The Member and The Radical. Mrs Thomson, authoress of 'Recollections of Literary Characters,' an old friend, who visited him when he was growing ever more and more disabled, has left a touching account of his helplessness. Galt received her without rising from his seat, gave her his left hand, and pointing to his right, said, 'with a little quickness, "Perhaps you have heard of my attack? It has fallen upon my limbs; my head is clear."' Alas! though clear, his mental powers were by no means what they had been. But, if on some former occasions he had shown himself too much a prey to moral sensibility, where physical suffering was concerned his behaviour was that of a stoic. Whilst the progress of the disease deprived him of the use of one limb after another, he continued, uncomplaining, to make the most of such powers as yet remained. Indeed, during the three or four years immediately following his first seizure, his annual literary output in the departments of editing, book-making, and story-writing, seems if anything larger than usual. But among all these undertakings, it is sufficient here to name the novels of Eben Erskine, or The Traveller, and The Stolen Child, with the three volumes of tales collected under the title of Stories of the Study, and the Autobiography and Literary Life and Miscellanies. The lax composition of the latter works is probably a symptom of mental decay in the author. The book last named was dedicated by permission to William the Fourth, who in acknowledgment of the compliment sent Galt £200, which money, together with £50 obtained for him from the Literary Fund, may be said to represent the sum of official, or quasi-official, recognition which he received. For his claims against Government for 'brokerage,' or commission, on the sale of lands to the Canada Company were refused, whilst a pension said to have been promised him by the Company was never paid. The last years of his life were spent in dependence, but it is pleasing to note that the Autobiography closes with an expression of satisfaction over the payment of secured debts. He had in the meantime been removed to the house of a sister at Greenock, where he died on the 11th April 1839, not having yet completed his sixtieth year.

In summing up Galt's position, it may be said that he remains the most unequal of all writers possessing equal claims to distinction—the man who could produce The Provost and Ringan Gilhaize and who did produce The Spaewife and The Literary Life. For it is not enough to say, as has been said, that in him there were two men, the man of letters and the man of affairs: there were two literary men in him, the creative artist and the book-maker. And the fact that, of these two, the latter had things too much his own way was due to Galt's defective appreciation of his high calling. 'My literary propensities,' he writes, 'were suspended during my residence in Upper Canada, not from resolution, but because I had more interesting pastime. I did then think myself qualified to do something more useful than "stringing blethers into rhyme," or writing clishmaclavers in a closet.' And again: 'At no time, as I frankly confess, have I been a great admirer of mere literary character; to tell the truth, I have sometimes felt a little shamefaced in thinking myself so much an author, in consequence of the estimation in which I view the profession of book-making in general. A mere literary man—an author by profession—stands low in my opinion.' The petulance and perversity of the first statement, and the sheer vulgarity of the second, may be palliated by the fact that the author was in low spirits and bad health when he made them. It remains none the less true that these opinions ruled his practice. But they carried their punishment with them. For who will doubt that Galt would have been a happier man had he been truer to his vocation, had he resisted the temptation to fly off at a tangent in pursuit of every commercial will-o'-the-wisp that might chance to catch his eye, and devoted his great powers with something more of steadiness and of seriousness to doing his best at what he was best qualified to do?

He expected that fuller appreciation would come to him after death, and perhaps this expectation, so fallacious in ninety-nine cases out of every hundred, was in his case not without plausible grounds. For, from a literary point of view, Galt, like De Stendhal, was in advance of his time. Employing the word in its specialised sense, he was more 'modern' than the greatest among his contemporaries. For example, as has been already indicated, when most himself he had more of what we are pleased to consider the characteristically modern qualities of sensitiveness and imaginative intensity than had Scott. In illustration of this, perhaps we cannot do better than cite the already quoted Omen, with its sombre and lurid effects, the sense of bated breath, suspense, impending tragedy, which pervades its every page. Nothing of all this, as I need hardly say, was in Scott's line; even in the finest and most imaginative of his shorter pieces, in My Aunt Margaret's Mirror, the tension is eased by characteristic diffuseness of manner. And Galt's superior—some will call it morbid—sensitiveness extended also to his style: his use of words, when he is at his best, is much more interesting than Scott's. It might possibly even be argued that his Scotch, if perhaps less abundant, is more remarkable for nice appropriateness of word and phrase than Sir Walter's. [And, by the way, the failure of Galt's reputation to cross the Tweed may, perhaps, be partly explained by the fact that, whereas in Scott's novels the dialogue alone is Scotch, in some of Galt's best books the entire narrative is interspersed with dialect words. One can fancy, for instance, the puzzled condition of a southern reader who is informed by the author himself that 'Mrs Malcolm herself was this winter brought to death's door by a terrible host that came on her in the kirk,' or that a certain clock 'was a mortification to the parish from the Lady Breadland.'] But, to continue our argument, besides the above, Galt has more of the modern pictorial quality than Scott: there is more in his descriptive work which is addressed directly to the eye. Once more, he repeatedly gratifies a modern taste by choosing for his theme what is fantastic, or occult, or what lies off the beaten track. In stating all this, we would, of course, guard against being understood to imply that all these characteristics are points of advantage possessed by Galt over Scott. On the contrary, some of them may even be symptoms of an age of literary decadence; what we do maintain is that, in virtue of these characteristics, his chance of appealing to a late nineteenth-century audience is improved. As a final word under this heading, Galt may be called the forerunner of the Realistic movement in Scottish fiction. The Provost and The Annals might almost belong to the age of Tourguenieff and Mr Henry James, and in this respect his works have been more studied than they have been praised, their influence has been greater than their reputation. Generally, and in conclusion, Galt may be credited with having done to some extent for Glasgow and the West of Scotland what Scott triumphantly accomplished for the Borders and the Highlands, and for the trading and professional classes of his country what Scott did for its gentry and peasantry.