Thou hast had thty day, old dame, but thy sun has long been set. Thou art now the very emblem of an old warhorse turned out on the barren heath; thou hast had thy paces in thy time, but now a broken amble is the best of them.

This trend accelerated in the twentieth century. I didn’t know exactly what a “dead soul” was but. In Ivanhoe as in the Waverley novels religious and sectarian fanatics are the villains while the eponymous hero is a bystander who must weigh the evidence and decide where to take a stand.

Famous titles include Ivanhoe Rob Roy The Lady of the Lake Waverley The Heart of Midlothian and The Bride of Lammermoor. His novels and poetry are still read and many of his works remain classics of both English-language literature and of Scottish literature.