“Waverley,” of which Scott was to receive half the profits, was published by Constable in July, 1814, without the author’s name, and its great success with the public was assured from the first.  None of Scott’s intimate friends ever had, or could have, the slightest doubt as to its parentage, and when Mr. Jeffrey reviewed the book, doing justice to its substantial merits, he was at no pains to conceal his conviction of the authorship.  With the single exception of the “Quarterly,” the critics hailed it as a work of original creative genius, one of the masterpieces of prose fiction.

From a voyage to the Hebrides with the Commissioners of the Northern Lighthouses, Scott returned in vigour to his desk at Abbotsford, where he worked at “The Lord of the Isles” and “Guy Mannering.”  The poem appeared in January and the novel in February, 1815.  “The Lord of the Isles” never reached the same popularity as the earlier poems had enjoyed, but “Guy Mannering” was pronounced by acclamation to be fully worthy of the honours of “Waverley.”  In March, Scott went to London with his wife and daughter, met Byron almost daily in Murray’s house, and was presented to the Prince Regent, who was enchanted with Scott, as Scott with him.  A visit to Paris in July of the same year is commemorated in “Paul’s Letters to His Kinsfolk.”  Scott’s reputation had as yet made little way among the French, but the Duke of Wellington, then in Paris, treated him with kindness and confidence, and a few eminent Frenchmen vied with the enthusiastic Germans in their attentions to him.

“The Antiquary” came out early in 1816, and was its author’s favourite among all his novels.  The “Tales of my Landlord,” published by Murray and Blackwood, appeared in December, and though anonymous was at once recognized as Scott’s.  The four volumes included the “Black Dwarf” and “Old Mortality.”  A month later followed a poem, “Harold the Dauntless.”  The title of “Rob Roy” was suggested by Constable; and the novel was published on the last day of 1817.

During this year the existing house of Abbotsford had been building, and Scott had added to his estate the lands of Toftfield, at a price of L10,000.  He was then thought to be consolidating a large fortune, for the annual profits of his novels alone had, for several years, been not less than the cost of Toftfield.

Having been asked by the Ballantynes to contribute to the historical department of the “Annual Register,” I often had occasion now to visit Scott in his house in Castle Street, where I usually found him working in his “den,” a small room behind the dining parlour, in company with his dog, Maida.  Besides his own huge elbow-chair, there were but two others in the room, and one of these was reserved for his amanuensis, a portrait of Claverhouse, over the chimneypiece, with a Highland target on either side and broadswords and dirks disposed star-fashion round them.  A venerable cat, fat and sleek, watched the proceedings of his toaster AND Maids with dignified equanimity.