  ANNE OF GEIERSTEIN, or the "Maiden of the Mist" was published in May 1829. "It may," writes Mr Lockhart, "be almost called the last work of Scott's imaginative genius, and it was received at least as well (out of Scotland, that is), as the 'Fair Maid of Perth' had been, or indeed as any novel of his after the Crusaders. I partake very strongly, I am aware, in the feeling which most of my own countrymen have little shame in avowing, that no novel of his where neither scenery nor character is Scottish, belongs to the same pre-eminent class with those in which he paints and peoples his native landscape. I have confessed that I cannot rank even his best English romances with such creations as 'Waverley' and 'Old Mortality;' far less can I believe that posterity will attach similar value to this Maid of the Mist Its pages, however, display in undiminished perfection all the skill and grace of the mere artist, with occasional outbreaks of the old poetic spirit, more than sufficient to remove the work to an immeasurable distance from any of its order produced in this country in our own age. Indeed, the various plays of fancy in the combination of persons and events, and the airy liveliness of both imagery and diction, may well justify us in applying to the author what he beautifully says of his King RenÉ— The first of the accompanying illustrations represents Margaret of Anjou and Arthur Philipson in Strasburg Cathedral. When Philipson, who had been bred a devoted adherent to the dethroned line of Lancaster, of which his father was a firm supporter, saw the dauntless widow of Henry VI., whose courage and policy had upheld the sinking cause of her husband, he threw his bonnet on the pavement and knelt at the feet of the injured Queen. Margaret, throwing back the veil which concealed her majestic features, gave one hand to the young knight, who covered it with tears and kisses, and with the other endeavoured to raise him from the posture he had assumed.
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