Scott had now all the fame and worldly prosperity which any literary man could attain to,—­for his authorship of the novels, although unacknowledged, was more and more generally believed, and after 1821 not denied.  He lived above the atmosphere of envy, honored by all classes of people, surrounded with admiring friends and visitors.  He had an income of at least L10,000 a year.  Wherever he journeyed he was treated with the greatest distinction.  In London he was cordially received as a distinguished guest in any circle he chose.  The highest nobles paid homage to him.  The King made him a baronet,—­the first purely literary man in England to receive that honor.  He now became ambitious to increase his lands; and the hundred acres of farm at Abbotsford were enlarged by new purchases, picturesquely planted with trees and shrubberies, while “the cottage grew to a mansion, and the mansion to a castle,” with its twelve hundred surrounding acres, cultivated and made beautiful.

Scott’s correspondence with famous people was immense, besides his other labors as farmer, lawyer, and author.  Few persons of rank or fame visited Edinburgh without paying their respects to its most eminent citizen.  His country house was invaded by tourists.  He was on terms of intimacy with some of the proudest nobles of Scotland.  His various works were the daily food not only of his countrymen, but of all educated Europe.  “Station, power, wealth, beauty, and genius strove with each other in every demonstration of respect and worship.”

And yet in the midst of this homage and increasing prosperity, one of the most fortunate of human beings, Scott’s head was not turned.  His habitual modesty preserved his moral health amid all sorts of temptation.  He never lost his intellectual balance.  He assumed no airs of superiority.  His manners were simple and unpretending to the last.  He praised all literary productions except his own.  His life in Edinburgh was plain, though hospitable and free; and he seemed to care for few luxuries aside from books, of which life made a large collection.  The furniture of his houses in Edinburgh and at Abbotsford was neither showy nor luxurious.  He was extraordinarily fond of dogs and all domestic animals, who—­sympathetic creatures as they are—­unerringly sought him out and lavished affection upon him.

When Scott lived in Castle Street he was not regarded by Edinburgh society as particularly brilliant in conversation, since he never aspired to lead by learned disquisitions.  He told stories well, with great humor and pleasantry, to amuse rather than to instruct.  His talk was almost homely.  The most noticeable thing about it was common-sense.  Lord Cockburn said of him that “his sense was more wonderful than his genius.”  He did not blaze like Macaulay or Mackintosh at the dinner-table, nor absorb conversation like Coleridge and Sydney Smith.  “He disliked,” says Lockhart, “mere disquisitions in Edinburgh and prepared impromptus in London.”  A doctrinaire in society was to him an abomination.  Hence, until his fame was established by the admiration of the world, Edinburgh professors did not see his greatness.  To them he seemed commonplace, but not to such men as Hallam or Moore or Rogers or Croker or Canning.