CHAPTER X.
THE WAVERLEY NOVELS.
In the summer of 1814, Scott took up again and completed--almost at a single heat,--a fragment of a Jacobite story, begun in 1805 and then laid aside.

It was published anonymously, and its astonishing success turned back again the scales of Scott's fortunes, already inclining ominously towards a catastrophe.

This story was _Waverley_.

Mr.
Carlyle has praised _Waverley_ above its fellows.

"On the whole, contrasting _Waverley_, which was carefully written, with most of its followers which were written extempore, one may regret the extempore method." This is, however, a very unfortunate judgment.