[180] Ibid., Vol. X, p. 213.

[181] Ibid., Vol. I, p. 411.

[182] Ibid., Vol. I, p. 98. See also St. Ronan's Well, Vol. I, p. 105, and various mottoes in the novels. The edition of the novels used for reference is that published in Edinburgh (1867) in 48 volumes.

[183] Dryden, Vol. X, p. 26.

[184] For example see Anne of Geierstein, Vol. II, p. 307.

[185] Letters to Heber, p. 292.

[186] The price offered for the Swift was £1500. This must have been a rather rash speculation on the publisher's part, as there had been several editions of Swift's works published. The first appeared in twelve volumes in 1755, edited by Hawkesworth. Deane Swift, Hawkesworth, and others, added thirteen more volumes in the course of the next twenty-five years, and when the whole was completed it was reissued in three different sizes. In 1785 an edition in seventeen volumes was published, edited by Thomas Sheridan. In 1801 the edition by Nichols was published, and it reappeared in 1804 and in 1808. Hawkesworth and Thomas Sheridan supplied biographies which Leslie Stephen characterized by saying that Hawkesworth's gave no new material and that Sheridan's was "pompous and dull." (Preface to Leslie Stephen's Life of Swift.)

[187] Correspondence of C.K. Sharpe, Vol. II, p. 178.

[188] This correspondence consisted of 28 letters from Swift, and 16 "Vanessa."

[189] A comparison of the index with the bibliography in the Dictionary of National Biography and with Mr. Stanley Lane-Poole's Notes for a Bibliography of Swift (Bibliographer, vi: 160-71) shows that Scott was usually right in his judgment on the main articles. But since Mr. Lane-Poole ends his list thus: "And numerous short poems, trifles, characters and short pieces," it is evident that one cannot carry the investigation far without undertaking to make a complete bibliography of Swift. Mr. Temple Scott says, in the Advertisement of his edition of Swift's Prose Works, begun in 1897, that since Sir Walter's edition of 1824 "there has been no serious attempt to grapple with the difficulties which then prevented and which still beset the attainment of a trustworthy and substantially complete text."

[190] Swift, Vol. IV, p. 280. Two more of Scott's comments may be given, further to illustrate his method. "This piece [William Crowe's Address to her Majesty, Swift, Vol. XII, p. 265] and those which follow, were first extracted by the learned Dr. Barrett, of Trinity College, Dublin, from the Lanesborough and other manuscripts. I have retained them from internal evidence, as I have discarded some articles upon the same score." "The following poems [poems given as "ascribed to Swift," Vol. X, p. 434] are extracted from the manuscript of Lord Lanesborough, called the Whimsical Medley. They are here inserted in deference to the opinion of a most obliging correspondent, who thinks they are juvenile attempts of Swift. I own I cannot discover much internal evidence in support of the supposition."

[191] Colonel Parnell, writing in the English Historical Review on "Dean Swift and the Memoirs of Captain Carleton," has spoken of the biography as "this most partial, verbose, and inaccurate account of the dean's life and writings." He says also that in editing Carleton's Memoirs Scott adopted, without investigation and in the face of evidence, Johnson's opinion that the memoirs were genuine; that Scott was mistaken about the date of the first edition and misquoted the title page; and that his "glowing account" of Lord Peterborough, in the introduction, was amplified (without acknowledgment) from a panegyric by Dr. Birch in "Houbraken's Heads." (English Historical Review, January, 1891; vi: 97. For a further reference to the article see below, p. 144.)

[192] Lockhart, Vol. II, p. 20.

[193] September, 1816.

[194] Swift Vol. XVII, p. 4, note.

[195] Life of Swift, conclusion.

[196] Swift, Vol. XI, p. 12.

[197] Vol. IX, p. 569. The tract had already been correctly assigned. A similar note on another tract indicates more careful research on the part of the editor. The paper is A Secret History of One Year, which had commonly been attributed to Robert Walpole. Scott says: "This tract in not to found in Mr. Coxe's list of Sir Robert Walpole's publications, nor in that given by his son, the Earl of Oxford, in the Royal and Noble Authors.... It does not seem at all probable that Walpole should at this crisis have thought it proper to advocate these principles." (Vol. XIII, p. 873.) The piece is now attributed to Defoe.

[198] See above, p. 4.

[199] Horace Walpole, in Lives of the Novelists.

[200] Lockhart, Vol. III, p. 512.

[201] Quarterly, September, 1826.

[202] See his explanation, in the articles themselves.

[203] The Mid-Eighteenth Century, by J.H. Millar, p. 143, note.

[204] Ibid., p. 159. Scott compares Fielding and Smollett at some length in the Life of Smollett.

[205] Life of Le Sage.

[206] Life of Richardson.

[207] Life of Fielding.

[208] Life of Goldsmith. As we might expect, Scott speaks rather too favorably of Goldsmith's hack work in history and science.

[209] Life of Sterne.

[210] Lockhart, Vol. I, p. 35.

[211] See above, p. 53, note.

[212] See also the Introductory epistle to Ivanhoe; and the Review of Walpole's Letters. "In attaining his contemporary triumph," says Mr. Brander Matthews, "Scott owed more to Horace Walpole than to Maria Edgeworth." The Historical Novel, p. 10.

[213] Scott uses the word.

[214] Mr. G.A. Aitken has given convincing evidence that the story was not invented by Defoe. Mr. Aitken also shows the falsity of Scott's statement that Drelincourt's book was in need of advertising, as William Lee, in his Life of Defoe, had previously done. (See The Nineteenth Century, xxxvii: 95. January, 1895; and also Aitken's edition of Defoe's Romances and Narratives, Vol. XV, Introduction.) A passage from Defoe's History of the Church of Scotland is quoted in the review of Tales of My Landlord, by Scott, who says that it probably suggested one of the scenes in Old Mortality. Scott there speaks of Defoe's "liveliness of imagination," and says he "excelled all others in dramatizing a story, and presenting it as if in actual speech and action before the reader." (Quarterly Review, January, 1817.)

[215] See also The Fortunes of Nigel, Vol. II, pp. 88-9.

[216] Life of Clara Reeve.

[217] Blackwood, March, 1818.

[218] Quarterly, May, 1818.

[219] See a reference to Voltaire and other French authors; Napoleon, Vol. I, ch. 2.

[220] Life of Richardson.

[221] We gather from Scott's article that he considered the following to be the chief "speculative errors" of Bage: he was an infidel; he misrepresented different classes of society, thinking the high tyrannical and the low virtuous and generous; his system of ethics was founded on philosophy instead of religion; he was inclined to minimize the importance of purity in women; he considered tax-gatherers extortioners, and soldiers, licensed murderers.

[222] Lockhart, Vol. II, p. 132.

[223] Familiar Letters, Vol. I, p. 192. In his George the Third, Thackeray said: "Do you remember the verses—the sacred verses—which Johnson wrote on the death of his humble friend Levett?" (Biographical edition of Thackeray, Vol. VII, p. 671.)

[224] Life of Johnson.

[225] Introduction to Chronicles of the Canongate.

[226] Dryden, Vol. XI, p. 81, note; Review of the Life and Works of John Home, Quarterly, June, 1827.

[227] Familiar Letters, Vol. II, p. 44.

[228] Swift, Vol. XVI, p. 275, note. On one of the last sad days before Sir Walter left Scotland for his Italian journey he quoted in full Prior's poem on Mezeray's History of France. (Lockhart, Vol. V, pp. 339-40.)

[229] Swift, Vol. III, p. 36.

[230] Ibid., Vol. XIII, p. 24.

[231] Correspondence of C.K. Sharpe, Vol. II, p. 194.

[232] Journal, Vol. I, p. 67; Lockhart, Vol. IV, p. 401.

[233] Allan Cunningham's Life of Scott, p. 96.

[234] Lockhart, Vol. I, p. 483.

[235] See the satirical paragraph in his review of Gertrude of Wyoming, on the habits of reviewers in general. "We are perfectly aware," he says, "that, according to the modern canons of criticism, the Reviewer is expected to show his immense superiority to the author reviewed, and at the same time to relieve the tediousness of narration, by turning the epic, dramatic, moral story before him into quaint and lively burlesque." (Quarterly, May, 1809.) In his review of the Life and Works of John Home he speaks of "the hackneyed rules of criticism, which, having crushed a hundred poets, will never, it may be prophesied, create, or assist in creating, a single one." (Quarterly, June, 1827.)

[236] Lockhart, Vol. I, p. 363.

[237] Lockhart, Vol. I, p. 501. For a further comparison of Scott and Jeffrey as critics see below, pp. 134-5.

[238] Lockhart, Vol. II, p. 204.

[239] Ibid., Vol. V, p. 97.

[240] Journal, Vol. II, p. 262

[241] Ibid., Vol. I, p. 173

[242] In general Scott admired Lockhart. "I have known the most able men of my time," he once wrote, "and I never met any one who had such ready command of his own mind, and possessed in a greater degree the power of making his talents available upon the shortest notice, and upon any subject." (Life of Murray, Vol. II, p. 222.) But in Lockhart's earlier days Scott said, "I am sometimes angry with him for an exuberant love of fun in his light writings, which he has caught, I think, from Wilson, a man of greater genius than himself perhaps, but who disputes with low adversaries, which I think a terrible error, and indulges in a sort of humour which exceeds the bounds of playing at ladies and gentlemen, a game to which I have been partial all my life." (Letters of Lady Louisa Stuart, p. 225.)

[243] Familiar Letters, Vol. II, p. 400.

[244] Lang's Lockhart, Vol. I, p. 406.

[245] Life of Murray, Vol. I, pp. 146-7.

[246] Quarterly, February, 1809.

[247] Lockhart, Vol. I, p. 327.

[248] Scott wrote a poetical epitaph for the burial place of Miss Seward and her father. See Edinburgh Annual Register, Vol. II, pt. 2. In the introduction to The Tapestried Chamber, Scott said, "It was told to me many years ago by the late Miss Anna Seward, who, among other accomplishments that rendered her an amusing inmate in a country house, had that of recounting narratives of this sort with very considerable effect; much greater, indeed, than anyone would be apt to guess from the style of her written performances." It must be remembered that Miss Seward was one of the first persons of any literary note, outside of Edinburgh, to show an interest in Scott's work, and he committed himself to admiration of her poetry when he was still in a rather uncritical stage. In regard to his later feeling about her see Recollections, by R.P. Gillies, Fraser's, xiii: 692, January, 1836.

[249] J.L. Adolphus, in an interesting passage in his Letters to Heber on the Authorship of Waverley, noted many of the references to contemporary poets. See pp. 53-4. See also Hazlitt's Spirit of the Age, art. Sir Walter Scott

[250] Familiar Letters, Vol. II, p. 341. See also a similar anecdote in Forster's Life of Landor, Vol. II, p. 244.

[251] Lockhart, Vol. I, pp. 116-17.

[252] Ibid., Vol. II, p. 132.

[253] Journal, Vol. I, p. 321.

[254] Review of Cromek's Reliques of Burns, Quarterly, February, 1809.

[255] Ibid.

[256] Ibid.

[257] Crabbe Robinson, in his diary (quoted by Knight in his edition of Wordsworth, Vol. X, p. 189), says that Coleridge and his friends "consider Scott as having stolen the verse" of Christabel. On this point see also a letter by Coleridge, given in Meteyard's Group of Englishmen, pp. 327-8. In 1807 Coleridge wrote to Southey: "I did not over-hugely admire the 'Lay of the Last Minstrel,' but saw no likeness whatever to the 'Christabel,' much less any improper resemblance." (Letters of Coleridge, ed. by E.H. Coleridge, Vol. II, p. 523.) Yet Mr. Lang seems to think that in this matter Scott "showed something of the deficient sense of meum and tuum which marked his freebooting ancestors." (Sir Walter Scott, p. 36.) Apparently Scott never dreamed that the matter could be looked at in this way. In Lockhart's Scott (Vol. II, pp. 77-8) we find described an occasion on which the two men once met in London, when they were asked, with other poets who were present, to recite from their unpublished writings. Coleridge complied with the request, but Scott said he had nothing of his own and would repeat some stanzas he had seen in a newspaper. The poem was criticised adversely in spite of Scott's protests, till Coleridge lost patience and exclaimed, "Let Mr. Scott alone; I wrote the poem." Coleridge's lines:

are probably much better known as they appear in Ivanhoe, incorrectly quoted, than in their proper form. Scott also added a note on Coleridge in this connection. (Ivanhoe, Chapter VIII.)

[258] But apparently not in any earlier than The Black Dwarf, which was written in 1816, the year in which the poem was published. It was about 1803 that Scott heard Christabel recited. See Familiar Letters, Vol. II, p. 221.

[259] Lockhart, Vol. I, p. 356.

[260] Familiar Letters, Vol. I, p. 315.

[261] See Letters to Heber, p. 293; On Imitations of the Ancient Ballad; Lockhart, Vol. III, pp. 56 and 264; Quentin Durward, Vol. II, p. 394.

[262] Note in The Abbot.

[263] Lockhart, Vol. III, p. 223.

[264] Note in St. Ronan's Well. See also the comment on Wallenstein in Paul's Letters, Letter XV.

[265] Review of Childe Harold, Canto III, Quarterly, October, 1816.

[266] In 1818 Scott wrote a review of Frankenstein in which it appears that he thought Shelley was the author. Shelley had sent the book with a note in which he said that it was the work of a friend and he had merely seen it through the press; and Scott took this for the conventional evasion so often resorted to by authors. (See Mr. Lang's note in his Introduction to the Waverley Novels, p. lxxxvi.) Scott praises the substance and style of the book, and advises the author to cultivate his poetical powers, in words which make it evident that he did not know Shelley as a poet, though Alastor had appeared in 1816. Scott also praises Frankenstein in his article on Hoffmann. In reading Scott's novels I have noted two reminiscences of the line, "One word is too often profaned." They are to be found in Old Mortality, Vol. II, p. 93, and in Redgauntlet, Vol. I, p. 224.

[267] Journal, Vol. II, p. 179.

[268] Familiar Letters, Vol. I, p. 40.

[269] Familiar Letters, Vol. I, p. 97.

[270] Journal, Vol. I, p. 333

[271] Ibid., Vol. II, p. 190.

[272] I quote from the letter as given in Knight's Wordsworth, Vol. II, p. 105. Prof. Knight says that Lockhart quotes the letter less exactly (Vol. I, p. 489.)

[273] Lockhart, Vol. III, p. 428.

[274] Even Byron admired Southey. He once wrote, "His prose is perfect. Of his poetry there are various opinions: there is, perhaps, too much of it for the present generation; posterity will probably select. He has passages equal to anything." (Byron's Letters and Journals, ed. Prothero, Vol. II, p. 331.) Shelley also had a high opinion of Southey's work. (Dowden's Life of Shelley, Vol. I, p. 158, and pp. 471-2.) Landor liked Madoc and Thalaba so much that, when he found Southey hesitating to write more poems of a similar kind because they did not pay, he offered to bear the expense of the publication. Southey refused the assistance, but was stimulated by the kindness and considered Landor's encouragement responsible for his later work in poetry. (Forster's Life of Landor, Vol. I, pp. 209-214.)

[275] Lockhart, Vol. II, p. 307.

[276] Ibid., Vol. I, p. 415.

[277] Ibid., Vol. I, p. 477; see also Edinburgh Annual Register for 1809, part 2, p. 588.

[278] Lockhart, Vol. III, p. 197.

[279] Lockhart, Vol. II, p. 127.

[280] In his youth Scott read Dante with other Italian authors, but he did not become well acquainted with him, and later even expressed dislike for his work. (See Lockhart, Vol. V, p. 408.) In 1825 he wrote to W.S. Rose, "I will subscribe for Dante with all pleasure, on condition you do not insist on my reading him." (Fam. Let., Vol. II, p. 356.)

[281] It may be interesting to have Southey's comment on the same article. (See Southey's Letters, Vol. II, p. 307.) He says, "Bedford has seen the review which Scott has written of it, and which, from his account, though a very friendly one, is, like that of the 'Cid,' very superficial. He sees nothing but the naked story; the moral feeling which pervades it has escaped him. I do not know whether Bedford will be able to get a paragraph interpolated touching upon this, and showing that there is some difference between a work of high imagination and a story of mere amusement." Either Bedford was mistaken in saying that Scott had ignored the moral aspect of the poem, or else he succeeded in getting a passage interpolated, for the review is sufficiently definite on that point.

[282] Lockhart, Vol. I, p. 481.

[283] Ibid., Vol. II, p. 296.

[284] Lockhart, Vol. V, p. 413.

[285] Journal, Vol. I, p. 112; Lockhart, Vol. IV, p. 429.

[286] Lockhart, Vol. V, p. 391.

[287] Ibid., Vol. II, p. 211.

[288] Introduction to Marmion; Lockhart, Vol. II, p. 82.

[289] Lockhart, Vol. II, p. 508.

[290] Byron did not altogether approve of Scott's poetry, but he felt its effectiveness. In his "Reply to Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine," Byron wrote: "What have we got instead [of following Pope]? A deluge of flimsy and unintelligible romances, imitated from Scott and myself, who have both made the best of our bad materials and erroneous system."

[291] Review of Childe Harold, Canto III, Quarterly, October, 1816.

[292] Lockhart, Vol. III, p. 182.

[293] It should be remembered also that Scott's first review of Childe Harold appeared at a time when all England was condemning Byron for his treatment of Lady Byron, and that the article was thought by many to be altogether too lenient. Byron wrote to Murray expressing his pleasure in the review before he knew who was responsible for it, and some years later he wrote to Scott as follows: "To have been recorded by you in such a manner would have been a proud memorial at any time, but at such a time ... was something still higher to my self-esteem.... Had it been a common criticism, however eloquent or panegyrical, I should have felt pleased, undoubtedly, and grateful, but not to the extent which the extraordinary good-heartedness of the whole proceeding must induce in any mind capable of such sensations." (Byron's Letters and Journals, Vol. VI, p. 2.) See Lockhart, Vol. II, p. 510, for quotations from Byron showing his admiration for Scott. An interesting contrast between the characters of the two poets is drawn by H.S. Legaré. (See his Collected Writings, Vol. II, p. 258.)

[294] Journal, Vol. I, p. 221

[295] Remarks on the Death of Lord Byron.

[296] Lockhart, Vol. III, p. 525

[297] See Nichol's Byron (English Men of Letters), p. 205; and Arnold's essay on Byron.

[298] Quarterly Review, May, 1809.

[299] Familiar Letters, Vol. I, p. 341.

[300] Journal, Vol. I, p. 9.

[301] Lockhart, Vol. V, p. 70.

[302] Ibid., Vol. II, p. 306.

[303] Byron said, "Crabbe's the man, but he has got a coarse and impracticable subject." (Moore's Life and Letters of Byron, Vol. IV, pp. 63-4.) Leslie Stephen remarks that Crabbe "was admired by Byron in his rather wayward mood of Pope-worship, as the last representative of the legitimate school." (English Literature and Society in the 18th Century, p. 207.)

[304] Lockhart, Vol. III, p. 197.

[305] The reader will at once recall the ingenuous remark of Sophia Scott when she was asked, shortly after its appearance, how she liked The Lady of the Lake. She said, "Oh, I have not read it; Papa says there's nothing so bad for young people as reading bad poetry." (Lockhart, Vol. II, p. 130. See also the Life of Irving, Vol. I, p. 444.)

[306] Familiar Letters, Vol. II, p. 94.

[307] Correspondence of C.K. Sharpe, Vol. I, p. 353.

[308] See Marmion, introduction to Canto III, and other passages noted by Adolphus in the Letters to Heber, p. 295. See also Familiar Letters, Vol. I, p. 198, and the passage in Lockhart (Vol. II, p. 132), in which James Ballantyne reports Scott as saying to him, "If you wish to speak of a real poet, Joanna Baillie is now the highest genius of our country."

[309] Lockhart, Vol. III, p. 306.

[310] Lockhart, Vol. V, p. 359; also Vol. I, p. 255; and Constable's Correspondence, Vol. III, p. 300.

[311] Lockhart, Vol. IV, p. 117.

[312] Ibid., Vol. V, p. 448.

[313] Ibid., Vol. II, p. 14.

[314] Forster, Vol. I, p. 84, note.

[315] Ibid., Vol. I, p. 95.

[316] Haydon's Correspondence, Vol. I, p. 356.

[317] Hunt says Scott was interested in reading The Story of Rimini. See Hunt's Autobiography, Vol. I, p. 260.

[318] Journal, Vol. I, p. 22. Scott wrote as follows to Lockhart after the appearance of Lord Byron and Some of his Contemporaries: "Hunt has behaved like a hyena to Byron, whom he has dug up to girn and howl over him in the same breath." Mr. Lang makes this comment: "Leigh Hunt ... had gone out of his way to insult Sir Walter and to make the most baseless insinuations against him. Scott probably never mentioned Leigh Hunt's name publicly in his life, and he refers to the insults neither in his correspondence nor in his Journal." (Lang's Life of Lockhart, Vol. II, pp. 22 and 24.) Hunt evidently thought that Scott was partly responsible for the articles in Blackwood on the Cockney School. He says, "Unfortunately some of the knaves were not destitute of talent: the younger were tools of older ones who kept out of sight." (Hunt's Lord Byron, etc., Vol. I, p. 423.) In his Autobiography, Hunt says, "Sir Walter Scott confessed to Mr. Severn at Rome that the truth respecting Keats had prevailed." (Vol. II, p. 44.) Mr. Lang points out that though Colvin said of Scott (in his Life of Keats) "that he was in some measure privy to the Cockney School outrages seems certain," he afterwards recanted the statement. (In his edition of Keats's Letters, p. 60, note. See Lang's Lockhart, Vol. I, pp. 196-8.) Scott invited Lamb to Abbotsford when Lamb was looked upon as a leader of the Cockney School. (Lang's Scott, p. 52.)

[319] Journal, Vol. I, p. 155; Lockhart, Vol. IV, p. 476, and Vol. V, p. 380.

[320] Quarterly, October, 1815.

[321] Postscript to Waverley, and General Introduction.

[322] For references to the group of women novelists who were so successful in depicting manners, see the Life of Charlotte Smith; the Postscript to Waverley; the Introduction to St. Ronan's Well; Journal, Vol. I, p. 164.

[323] Journal, Vol. II, p. III.

[324] Ibid., Vol. II, p. 116.

[325] Lockhart, Vol. IV, 164.

[326] Journal, Vol. I, p. 299; Lockhart, Vol. V, p. 65.

[327] Journal, Vol. I, p. 295; Lockhart, Vol. V, p. 62.

[328] The reference as given by Lockhart is as follows: "This man, who has shown so much genius, has a good deal of the manners, or want of manners, peculiar to his countrymen." (Lockhart, Vol. V, p. 62.) Cooper observes in regard to this point: "The manners of most Europeans strike us as exaggerated, while we appear cold to them. Sir Walter Scott was certainly so obliging as to say many flattering things to me, which I, as certainly, did not repay in kind. As Johnson said of his interview with George the Third, it was not for me to bandy compliments with my sovereign. At that time the diary was a sealed book to the world, and I did not know the importance he attached to such civilities." It is a pity that the transcriber of the passage in the Journal changed "manner," which was the word Scott wrote, to the more objectionable "manners." (Journal, Vol. I, p. 295.)

[329] Scott's letter was substantially as follows: "I have considered in all its bearings the matter which your kindness has suggested. Upon many former occasions I have been urged by my friends in America to turn to some advantage the sale of my writings in your country, and render that of pecuniary avail as an individual which I feel as the highest compliment as an author. I declined all these proposals, because the sale of this country produced me as much profit as I desired, and more—far more—than I deserved. But my late heavy losses have made my situation somewhat different, and have rendered it a point of necessity and even duty to neglect no means of making the sale of my works effectual to the extrication of my affairs, which can be honorably and honestly resorted to. If therefore Mr. Carey, or any other publishing gentleman of credit and character, should think it worth while to accept such an offer, I am willing to convey to him the exclusive right of publishing the Life of Napoleon, and my future works in America, making it always a condition, which indeed will be dictated by the publisher's own interest, that this monopoly shall not be used for the purpose of raising the price of the work to my American readers, but only for that of supplying the public at the usual terms....

"At any rate, if what I propose should not be found of force to prevent piracy, I cannot but think from the generosity and justice of American feeling, that a considerable preference would be given in the market to the editions emanating directly from the publisher selected by the author, and in the sale of which the author had some interest.

"If the scheme shall altogether fail, it at least infers no loss, and therefore is, I think, worth the experiment. It is a fair and open appeal to the liberality, perhaps in some sort to the justice, of a great people; and I think I ought not in the circumstances to decline venturing upon it. I have done so manfully and openly, though not perhaps without some painful feelings, which however are more than compensated by the interest you have taken in this unimportant matter, of which I will not soon lose the recollection." (Knickerbocker Magazine, Vol. XI, p. 380 ff., April, 1838.)

[330] Knickerbocker, Vol. XII, p. 349 ff., October, 1838.

[331] In a letter written in January, 1839, Sumner said, speaking of Cooper's article, "I think a proper castigation is applied to the vulgar minds of Scott and Lockhart." (See Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, by Edward L. Pierce, Vol. II, p. 38; and Lounsbury's Cooper, p. 160.)

[332] Lockhart, Vol. IV, pp. 163-4.

[333] Ibid., Vol. III, p. 262.

[334] Ibid., Vol. III, p. 131, note; Fam. Let., Vol. I, p. 440. "Walter Scott was the first transatlantic author to bear witness to the merit of Knickerbocker," wrote P.M. Irving in his Life of Washington Irving. Henry Brevoort presented Scott with a copy of the second edition in 1813, and received this reply: "I beg you to accept my best thanks for the uncommon degree of entertainment which I have received from the most excellently jocose history of New York. I am sensible that as a stranger to American parties and politics I must lose much of the concealed satire of the piece, but I must own that looking at the simple and obvious meaning only, I have never read anything so closely resembling the style of Dean Swift, as the annals of Diedrich Knickerbocker.... I think too there are passages which indicate that the author possesses powers of a different kind, and has some touches which remind me much of Sterne." (Life of Irving, Vol. I, p. 240.) When, in 1819, Irving needed money, he wrote to Scott for advice about publishing the Sketch Book in England. "Scott was the only literary man," he says, "to whom I felt that I could talk about myself and my petty concerns with the confidence and freedom that I would to an old friend—nor was I deceived. From the first moment that I mentioned my work to him in a letter, he took a decided and effective interest in it, and has been to me an invaluable friend." (Vol. I, p. 456.) At this time Scott asked Irving to accept the editorship of a political newspaper in Edinburgh, an offer which Irving of course refused. (Fam. Let., Vol. II, p. 60; Life of Irving, Vol. I, pp. 441-2, and Vol. III, pp. 272-3.) Scott called the Sketch Book "positively beautiful." He was by some people supposed to be the author. In this connection it was said of him that his "very numerous disguises," and his "well-known fondness for literary masquerading, seem to have gained him the advantage of being suspected as the author of every distinguished work that is published." (Letter by Lady Lyttleton, in Life of Irving, Vol. II, p. 21.)

[335] Lockhart, Vol. III, p. 131; Life of Irving, Vol. I, p. 240.

[336] Lockhart, Vol. IV, p. 161.

[337] Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft, Letter II.

[338] Constable's Correspondence, Vol. III, p. 199.

[339] Lockhart, Vol. V, pp. 100-104.

[340] Vol. I, p. 371.

[341] Journal, Vol. I, p. 359; Lockhart, Vol. V, p. 100. See also Journal, Vol. II, pp. 483-4.

[342] Review of Hoffmann's novels, Foreign Quarterly Review, July, 1827.

[343] Lockhart, Vol. IV, p. 19.

[344] M. Maigron says, speaking of the vogue of Scott in France: "On peut affirmer mème que, de 1820 à 1830, aucun nom français ne fut en France aussi connu et aussi glorieux." (Le Roman Historique à l'Époque Romantique, p. 99. See also pp. 100-133.)

[345] The phrase is quoted from Scott's article on the Life and Works of John Home, in which it is applied to Home's critical work. The same idea occurs frequently in Scott's books, as indicating one of the finest graces of life. It was one which Sir Walter was foremost in practicing in all his social relations.

[346] He was talking about Pope. See the Recollections, by R.P. Gillies, Fraser's, xii: 253 (Sept., 1835).

[347] Review of The Battles of Talavera, Quarterly, November, 1809.

[348] Editor's Introduction to Montrose, Border edition of the Waverley Novels.

[349] Familiar Letters, Vol. I, p. 125.

[350] Quarterly, January, 1817. Scott evidently wrote this article chiefly for the purpose of defending the historical accuracy of Old Mortality. He also wished to show that The Black Dwarf was founded on fact; and he devoted some space, as will appear in the passage quoted below (pp. 111-112), to a discussion of the artistic aspects of these and the earlier Waverly novels.

[351] Journal, Vol. II, p. 269.

[352] Ibid., Vol. II, p. 276.

[353] Familiar Letters, Vol. I, p. 96.

[354] Introductory epistle to Nigel; Fam. Let., Vol. I, p. 28.

[355] Introduction to the Monastery.

[356] Familiar Letters, Vol. I, p. 258.

[357] Rokeby, Canto VI, stanza 26; Waverley, Vol. II, pp. 399-400; Journal, Vol. 1, p. 117; Lockhart, Vol. IV, pp. 447-8.

[358] Review of the Life and Works of John Home, Quarterly, June, 1827.

[359] Review of Southery's Life of Bunyan, Quarterly, October, 1830.

[360] Quarterly, January, 1817.

[361] Lockhart, Vol. II, pp. 7-8.

[362] Quarterly, November, 1809.

[363] Lockhart, Vol. II, p. 128.

[364] Ibid., Vol. II, p. 129.

[365] Epistle prefixed to Canto V.

[366] Epistle prefixed to Canto III.

[367] Hazlitt's Spirit of the Age, art. Sir Walter Scott; see Letters to Heber, p. 75 ff.

[368] It is hard to say just how much he accomplished by the proof-reading, which, to judge by his Journal, he habitually performed. He wrote to Kirkpatrick Sharpe in 1809, after seeing a new number of the Quarterly: "I am a little disconcerted with the appearance of one or two of my own articles, which I have had no opportunity to revise in proof." (Sharpe's Correspondence, Vol. I, p. 370.) Lockhart gives an interesting sample of a sheet of Scott's poetry tentatively revised by Ballantyne and reworked by the author. (Lockhart, Vol. III, pp. 32-5.) It is certain that Ballantyne made many suggestions, some of which Scott accepted and some of which he summarily rejected. In Hogg's Domestic Manners of Scott we find the following account of what the printer said when Hogg reported that Sir Walter was to correct some proofs for him: "He correct them for you! Lord help you and him both! I assure you if he had nobody to correct after him, there would be a bonny song through the country. He is the most careless and incorrect writer that ever was born, for a voluminous and popular writer, and as for sending a proof sheet to him, we may as well keep it in the office. He never heeds it.... He will never look at either your proofs or his own, unless it be for a few minutes amusement" (pp. 242-3). When he wrote to Miss Baillie that he had read the proofs of a play of hers which was being published in Edinburgh, he added, "but this will not ensure their being altogether correct, for in despite of great practice, Ballantyne insists I have a bad eye." (Familiar Letters, Vol. I, p. 173.)

[369] Journal, Vol. II, p. 79; also 234 and 239; Lockhart, Vol. V, pp. 116 and 240.

[370] Journal, Vol. I, p. 117; Lockhart, Vol. IV, p. 448.

[371] Lockhart, Vol. IV, pp. 2 and 391.

[372] Familiar Letters, Vol. I, p. 72.

[373] Ibid., Vol. I, p. 101.

[374] Ibid., Vol. I, p. 113.

[375] Essay on Imitations of the Ancient Ballad.

[376] A friend of Scott's once wrote to him, "You are the only author I ever yet knew to whom one might speak plain about the faults found with his works." (Familiar Letters, Vol. I, p. 282.) He took great pains, contrary to his usual custom, in revising and correcting the Malachi Malagrowther papers, but these were argumentative and in an altogether different class from his poems and novels; and besides he felt a special responsibility in writing upon a public matter "far more important than anything referring to [his] fame or fortune alone." (Lockhart, Vol. IV, p. 460.)

[377] Lockhart, Vol. III, p. 379.

[378] Introduction to the Pirate.

[379] Journal, Vol. II, p. 250.

[380] This was, of course, an effect of overwork and disease. Irving quotes Scott as saying: "It is all nonsense to tell a man that his mind is not affected, when his body is in this state." (Irving's Life, Vol. II, p. 459.)

[381] Journal, Vol. I, p. 181.

[382] See Lockhart, Vol. II, pp. 265-6.

[383] Journal, Vol. I, pp. 212-13; Lockhart, Vol. V, p. 13.

[384] See Familiar Letters, Vol. II, p. 309; Lockhart, Vol. I, p. 216; Vol. IV, pp. 128 and 498; Vol. V, pp. 128, 412, 448.

[385] Correspondence of C.K. Sharpe, Vol. I, p. 352.

[386] Journal, Vol. II, p. 276. In the Edinburgh Annual Register for 1808 (published 1810) is an article on the Living Poets of Great Britain, which if not written by Scott was evidently influenced by him. Speaking of Southey, Campbell and Scott, the writer says: "Were we set to classify their respective admirers we should be apt to say that those who feel poetry most enthusiastically prefer Southey; those who try it by the most severe rules admire Campbell; while the general mass of readers prefer to either the Border Poet. In this arrangement we should do Mr. Scott no injustice, because we assign to him in the number of suffrages what we deny him in their value." He once wrote to Miss Baillie, "No one can both eat his cake and have his cake, and I have enjoyed too extensive popularity in this generation to be entitled to draw long-dated bills upon the applause of the next." (Familiar Letters, Vol. I, p. 173.) But in the Introductory Epistle to Nigel he said, "It has often happened that those who have been best received in their own time have also continued to be acceptable to posterity. I do not think so ill of the present generation as to suppose that its present favour necessarily infers future condemnation."

[387] Introduction to the Lady of the Lake; Lockhart, Vol. II, p. 130.

[388] Introduction to Chronicles of the Canongate.

[389] Journal, Vol. II, p 473.

[390] Lockhart, Vol. II, p. 355.

[391] Ibid., Vol. V, p. 164.

[392] See speech of Humphry Gubbin, in The Tender Husband, Act I, Sc. 2.

[393] Lockhart, Vol. IV, p 297; see also Familiar Letters, Vol. I, p. 55.

[394] Lockhart, Vol. II, pp. 104 and 124.

[395] Journal, Vol. I, p. 222; Lockhart, Vol. V, p. 18.

[396] Lockhart, Vol. III, p. 350.

[397] Ibid., Vol. II, p. 508.

[398] Lockhart, Vol. IV, p. 229.

[399] When Constable was proposing to publish the poetry of the novels separately, Scott wrote to him that it was beyond his own power to distinguish what was original from what was borrowed, and suggested the following Advertisement for the book: