would have produced irretrievable despondency; but Scott bore his misfortune with magnanimity and manly resignation.  He had been largely indebted to both the establishments which had unfortunately involved him in their fall, in the elegant production of his works, as well as in respect of pecuniary accommodation; and he felt bound in honour, as well as by legal obligation, fully to discharge the debt.  He declined to accept an offer of the creditors to be satisfied with a composition; and claiming only to be allowed time, applied himself with indomitable energy to his arduous undertaking, at the age of fifty-five, in the full determination, if his life was spared, of cancelling every farthing of his obligations.  At the crisis of his embarrassments he was engaged in the composition of “Woodstock,” which shortly afterwards appeared.  The “Life of Napoleon,” which had for a considerable time occupied his attention, was published in 1827, in nine vols. octavo.  In the course of its preparation he had visited both London and Paris in search of materials.  In the same year he produced “Chronicles of the Canongate,” first series; and in the year following, the second series of those charming tales, and the first portion of his juvenile history of Scotland, under the title of “Tales of a Grandfather.”  A second portion of these tales appeared in 1829, and the third and concluding series in 1830, when he also contributed a graver History of Scotland in two volumes to Lardner’s Cabinet Cyclopaedia.  In 1829 likewise appeared “Anne of Geierstein,” a romance, and in 1830 the “Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft.”  In 1831 he produced a series of “Tales on French History,” uniform with the “Tales of a Grandfather,” and his novels, “Count Robert of Paris,” and “Castle Dangerous,” as a fourth series of “Tales of My Landlord.”  Other productions of inferior mark appeared from his pen; he contributed to the Edinburgh Review, during the first year of its career; wrote the articles, “Chivalry,” “Romance,” and “Drama,” for the sixth edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica; and during his latter years contributed somewhat copiously to the Quarterly Review.

At a public dinner in Edinburgh, for the benefit of the Theatrical Fund, on the 23d of February 1827, Sir Walter made his first avowal as to the authorship of the Waverley Novels,—­an announcement which scarcely took the public by surprise.  The physical energies of the illustrious author were now suffering a rapid decline; and in his increasing infirmities, and liability to sudden and severe attacks of pain, and even of unconsciousness, it became evident to his friends, that, in the praiseworthy effort to pay his debts, he was sacrificing his health and shortening his life.  Those apprehensions proved not without foundation.  In the autumn of 1831, his health became so lamentably broken, that his medical advisers recommended a residence in Italy, and entire cessation