For Scott was as faultless as a human creature can be.

Every one who knew him loved him, and he loved all men, even Whigs.

His early life, prosperous and successful, was as different as possible from Carlyle's.

It was not until the years were closing in upon him that misfortune came, and called out that serene, heroic fortitude which his diary has made an everlasting possession for mankind.

Carlyle once said in a splenetic mood that the lives of men of letters were the most miserable records in literature, except the Newgate Calendar.