text:  No wonder that the mere thought of estrangement in such a society as this should have stricken the bravest bosom with terror and woe and dismay! Yet so troublous was the aspect of Europe then that such fear was not utterly unfelt; and it was the apprehension of that calamity more than any other worldly cause that dimmed the soul and darkened the spirit of that great and good man Sir Walter Scott in his declining years; for all his large affections were bound up and entwined with the interests of Scotland and had the sacrifice been required of him he would gladly have laid down his life to avert from her the perils which he then foresaw