Margaret Ball

“ More than once Scott expresses the opinion that though novels may be useful to arouse curiosity about history, and to impart some knowledge to people who will not do any serious thinking, they may, on the other hand, work harm by satisfying with their superficial information those who would otherwise read history. [429] It seems as if he designed the Life of Napoleon and the History of Scotland for a new reading class that the novels had been creating, and as if he wished to make the step of transition not too long. ”

“ His historical novels, said Carlyle, "taught all men this truth, which looks like a truism, and yet was as good as unknown to writers of history and others, till so taught: that the bygone ages of the world were actually filled by living men, not by protocols, state-papers, controversies, and abstractions of men." [420] One who has the academic notion that a novel, to be great, must be written with no ulterior purpose, is almost startled to observe how definitely Scott considered it the function of his novels to portray ancient manners. ”

“ He says: "The feeling of reverence which we entertain for that which [89] is difficult of comprehension, gives way to weariness whenever we begin to suspect that it cannot be distinctly comprehended by anyone.... The strength of poetical conception and beauty of diction bestowed upon such prolusions [sic] , is as much thrown away as the colors of a painter, could he take a cloud of mist or a wreath of smoke for his canvas." It is disappointing that we have no comment from Scott upon Shelley's poetry, but we can imagine what is would have been. ”

“ Scott evidently felt that Coleridge was a most tantalizing poet, and once intimated that future generations would in regard to him feel something like Milton's desire "to call up him who left half told the story of Cambuscan bold." [262] "No man has all the resources of poetry in such profusion, but he cannot manage them so as to bring out anything of his own on a large scale at all worthy of his genius.... His fancy and diction would have long ago placed him above all his contemporaries, had they been under the direction of a sound judgment and a steady will." ”

“ That Scott was not a dull digger in heaps of ancient lore was owing to his imaginative power,—the second of the qualities which we have distinguished as dominating his literary temperament. "I can see as many castles in the clouds as any man," he testified. [11] A recent writer has said that Scott had more than any other man that ever lived a sense of the romantic, and adds that his was that true romance which "lies not upon the outside of life, but absolutely in the centre of it." ”

“ In spite of his statement that "the English stage might be considered equally without rule and without model when Shakspeare arose," Scott did not seem inclined to leave the great man altogether unaccounted for, as some critics have preferred to do, for he says, "The effect of the genius of an individual upon the taste of a nation is mighty; but that genius in its turn is formed according to the opinions prevalent at the period when it comes into existence." ”

“ Of this Scott was not himself in the least convinced, and when we recall how, to please his printer, James Ballantyne, he tacked on a last scene to Rokeby, resuscitated the dead Athelstane in Ivanhoe, and eliminated the main motive of St. Ronan's Well, we wish he had been more uniformly inclined to trust his own critical judgment.
He never scheduled the qualities of his own genius. A man who could sincerely say what he did about literary immortality would not be apt to develop any dogma in regard to his artistic achievement. ”

“ By temperament, then, Scott was enthusiastic over the past and cheerful in regard to his own day; he was imaginative, practical, genial; and these traits must be taken into account in judging his critical writings. These and other qualities may be deduced from the most superficial study of his creative work. The mere bulk of that work bears witness to two things: first that Scott was primarily a creative writer; again, that he was of those who write much rather than minutely. It is obvious that to attack details would be easy. ”

“ Scott's nature was of that most efficient kind that enables a man to do such things as he likes to see done. We cannot argue that he was incapable of attending to minute niceties and on this account chose to emphasize the large qualities of literature. For notwithstanding that lack of delicacy which characterized his physical senses and which we might therefore conclude would affect his literary discernment, we have among his small poems some that show his power, occasionally at least, to satisfy the most fastidious critic of detail. ”

“ But it is beyond the strength of flesh and blood to resist saying things about the future sometimes, and Scott occasionally yielded to the temptation, helped, no doubt, by his amiability. Southey's Madoc, however, has not yet assumed that place at the feet of Milton which, as we have seen, he ventured to predict for it. Yet, if we may trust the memory of one of his friends, Scott foresaw the literary success of two of his greatest contemporaries. ”

“ We may safely say that Scott enjoyed liking the work of other men. "I am most delighted with praise from those who convince me of their good taste by admiring the genius of my contemporaries," [234] he once wrote to Southey.
It is commonly supposed that Scott's amiability led him into absurd excesses of praise for the works of his fellow-craftsmen, and indeed he did say some very surprising things. But when all his references to any one man are brought together, they will be found, with a few exceptions, pretty fairly to characterize the writer. ”

“ It follows that Scott was on the whole an impressionistic critic. A study of his personality is essential to a consideration of his critical work, for he was not so much a systematic student of literature, guided by fixed principles, as a man of a certain temperament who read particular things and made particular remarks about them as he felt inclined. The inconsistencies and contradictions which would naturally result from such a procedure are occasionally noticeable, but they are fewer than would occur in the work of a less well-balanced man than himself. ”

“ Whether common-sense should really predominate in criticism might perhaps be debated; the quality indicates, indeed, not only the excellence but also the limitations of his method. For example, Scott was rather too much given to accepting popular favor as the test of merit in literary work, and though the clamorously eager reception of his own books was never able to raise his self-esteem to a very high pitch, it seems to have been the only thing that induced him to respect his powers in anything like an appreciative way. ”

“ Aside from the familiar knowledge of ancient manners which he thought enabled him to give his tales the necessary touch of novelty, and from the "hurried frankness," or spontaneity of style which endowed them with vitality, Scott believed that his talents included a special knack at description. He felt, however, that a sense of the picturesque in action was a different thing from a similar perception in regard to scenery, and that though the first was natural to him, he was obliged to use effort to develop the second. ”

“ Some of Scott's critics would perhaps apply one of the strictures to himself: "Although Sir John quotes Horace, he has yet to learn that a wise man should not admire too easily; for he frequently falls into a state of wonderment at what appears to us neither very new nor very extraordinary." [246] But if admiration seems to characterize too great a proportion of Scott's critical work, it is because he usually preferred to ignore such books as demanded the sarcastic treatment which he reprehended, but which he felt perfectly capable of applying when he wished. ”

“ But Scott, rather than Coleridge, was the interpreter to his age of the romantic spirit, for the ordinary person likes his wonders so tangible that he may know definitely the point at which they impinge upon his consciousness. In Scott's work the point of contact is made clear: the author brings his atmosphere not from another world but from the past, and with all its strangeness it has no unearthly quality. [12] In general the romance of his nature is rather taken for granted than insisted on, for there are the poems and the novels to bear witness to that side of his temperament ”

“ It was largely his desire to secure variety that encouraged him to undertake historical writing. He had also a theory about how history should be written, and so he felt that the novelty would consist in something more than the fact that the Author of Waverley had taken a new line. He wished, as Thackeray did later when he proposed to write a history of the Age of Queen Anne, to use in an avowedly serious book the material with which he had stored his imagination; and he believed he could present it with a vivacity that was not characteristic of professional historians. ”

“ It was Scott's political creed that roused the ire of such men as Hazlitt and Hunt, though they may also have been exasperated at the unprecedented success of poetry which seemed so facile and so superficial to them as Scott's. Leigh Hunt calls him "a poet of a purely conventional order," "a bitter and not very large-minded politician," "a critic more agreeable than subtle." ”

“ Before he wrote about Byron Scott had given in his review of Gertrude of Wyoming an exposition of his opinion as to the dangers of extreme care in revision. "The truth is," he says, "that an author cannot work upon a beautiful poem beyond a certain point without doing it real and irreparable injury in more respects than one." [298] He felt that Campbell had worked, in many cases, beyond the "certain point." For the "impetuous lyric sally," like the Mariners of England and the Battle of the Baltic, Scott rightly thought that Campbell excelled all his contemporaries. ”

“ Every quality which made Scott a great man contributes to the interest and importance of his criticism. Such a body of criticism, formulated by a large creative genius, would be of special consequence if it served merely as the basis for a study of his other work, a commentary on the principles which underlay his whole literary achievement. ”

“ The present study is an attempt to show the scope and quality of Scott's critical writings, and of such works, not exclusively or mainly critical, as exhibit the range of his scholarship. For it is impossible to treat his criticism without discussing his scholarship; since, lightly as he carried it, this was of consequence in itself and in its influence on all that he did. The materials for analysis are abundant; and by rearrangement and special study they may be made to contribute both to the history of criticism and to our comprehension of the power of a great writer. ”

“ In him, more than in most men of letters, the critic resembled the creative writer, and though the critical temperament seems to show itself but rarely in his romances, we find that the characteristic absence of precise and conscious art is itself in harmony with his critical creed. ”

“ But his thesis is that "the direct and obvious moral to be deduced from a fictitious narrative is of much less consequence to the public than the mode in which the story is treated in the course of its details." [220] In the Life of Fielding he says of novels: "The best which can be hoped is that they may sometimes instruct [79] the youthful mind by real pictures of life, and sometimes awaken their better feelings and sympathies by strains of generous sentiment, and tales of fictitious woe. Beyond this point they are a mere elegance, a luxury contrived for the amusement of polished life." ”

“ To study Scott's relations with contemporary writers is a very pleasant task because nothing shows better the greatness of his heart. His admirable freedom from literary jealousy was an innate virtue which he deliberately increased by cultivation, taking care, also, never to subject himself to the conditions which he thought accounted for the faults of Pope, who had "neither the business nor the idleness of life to divide his mind from his Parnassian pursuits." [231] "Those who have not his genius may be so far compensated by avoiding his foibles," Scott said ”

“ The catalogue of Scott's contemporaries is so full of important names that his genius for the enjoyment of other men's work had a wide opportunity to display itself without becoming absurd. An argument early used to prove that Scott was the author of Waverley was the frequency of quotation in the novels from all living poets except Scott himself, and he felt constrained to throw in a reference or two to his own poetry in order to weaken the force of the evidence. ”