For my own part, I greatly prefer _The Fortunes of Nigel_ (which was written in 1822) to _Waverley_ which was begun in 1805, and finished in 1814, and though very many better critics would probably decidedly disagree, I do not think that any of them would consider this preference grotesque or purely capricious.

Indeed, though _Anne of Geierstein_,--the last composed before Scott's stroke,--would hardly seem to any careful judge the equal of _Waverley_, I do not much doubt that if it had appeared in place of _Waverley_, it would have excited very nearly as much interest and admiration; nor that had _Waverley_ appeared in 1829, in place of _Anne of Geierstein_, it would have failed to excite very much more.

In these fourteen most effective years of Scott's literary life, during which he wrote twenty-three novels besides shorter tales, the best stories appear to have been on the whole the most rapidly written, probably because they took the strongest hold of the author's imagination.
Till near the close of his career as an author, Scott never avowed his responsibility for any of these series of novels, and even took some pains to mystify the public as to the identity between the author of _Waverley_ and the author of _Tales of my Landlord_.

The care with which the secret was kept is imputed by Mr.Lockhart in some degree to the habit of mystery which had grown upon Scott during his secret partnership with the Ballantynes; but in this he seems to be confounding two very different phases of Scott's character.

No doubt he was, as a professional man, a little ashamed of his commercial speculation, and unwilling to betray it.