Margaret Ball - Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature

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[Footnote 113: _Review of the Life and Works of John Home_,
_Quarterly_, June, 1827.]

[Footnote 114: _Familiar Letters_, Vol. II, p. 143.]

[Footnote 115: _Lockhart_, Vol. III, p. 427. It may be noted that this
criticism does not show much dramatic insight.]

[Footnote 116: _Lockhart_, Vol. III, pp. 445-6.]

[Footnote 117: _Journal_, Vol. I, p. 117; _Lockhart_, Vol. IV, p.
447.]

[Footnote 118: _Journal_, Vol. I, p. 94; _Lockhart_, Vol. IV, p. 419.]

[Footnote 119: Advertisement to _Halidon Hill_. When the publisher
Cadell closed a bargain with Scott in five minutes for _Halidon Hill_,
giving him L1000, he wrote as follows to his partner: "My views were
these: here is a commencement of a series of dramatic writings--let us
begin by buying them out." (_Constable's Correspondence_, Vol. III, p.
217.)]

[Footnote 120: "That well-written, but very didactic 'Old Play'," as
Adolphus calls it. (_Letters to Heber_, p. 55.)]

[Footnote 121: Introductory epistle to _Nigel_.]

[Footnote 122: _Lockhart_, Vol. V, p. 414.]

[Footnote 123: Fitzgerald's _New History of the English Stage_, Vol.
II, p. 404.]

[Footnote 124: _Dramatic Essays_, Hazlitt's _Works_, Vol. VIII, p.
422.]

[Footnote 125: _Lockhart_, Vol. III. p. 176.]

[Footnote 126: _Ibid._, Vol. III. p. 265.]

[Footnote 127: _Ibid._, Vol. III. p. 332.]

[Footnote 128: _Essay on the Drama_.]

[Footnote 129: In 1808 he wrote to a friend: "We have Miss Baillie
here at present, who is certainly the best dramatic writer whom
Britain has produced since the days of Shakspeare and Massinger."
(_Fam. Let._, Vol. I. p. 99.) But Wilson also put Joanna Baillie next
to Shakspere, and quite seriously. The article in the _Dictionary of
National Biography_, on Joanna Baillie says that when the first volume
of _Plays on the Passions_ was published anonymously in 1798, Walter
Scott was at first suspected of being the author. But as Scott had
done nothing to give him a literary reputation in 1798, the assertion
is incredible. It seems to be based on the following very inexact
statement in _Chambers's Biographical Dictionary of Eminent
Scotsmen._ (Vol. V, Art. _Joanna Baillie_.) "Rich though the period
was in poetry, this work made a great impression, and a new edition of
it was soon required. The writer was sought for among the most gifted
personages of the day, and the illustrious Scott, with others then
equally appreciated, was suspected as the author."]

[Footnote 130: _Lockhart_, Vol. I, p. 380.]

[Footnote 131: _Life of Dryden_, ch. I. In _Guy Mannering_ and _The
Antiquary_, the first two novels in which Scott habitually used
mottoes to head his chapters, most of the selections are from plays.
Eighteen plays of Shakspere are represented by twenty-nine quotations.
Other mottoes are from _The Merry Devil of Edmonton_, from Jonson,
from Fletcher (_The Little French Lawyer_, _Women Pleased_, _The Fair
Maid of the Inn_, _The Beggar's Bush_), from Brome, Dekker, Middleton
and Rowley, Cartwright, Otway, Southerne, _The Beggar's Opera_,
Walpole's _Mysterious Mother_, _The Critic_, _Chrononhotonthologos_,
Joanna Baillie. For the latter part of _The Antiquary_ many of the
mottoes were composed by Scott himself. _Kenilworth_ presents a
similar list, with some variations: Jonson's _Masque of Owls_ was
used, more than one play by Beaumont and Fletcher, Waldron's _Virgin
Queen_, _Wallenstein_, and _Douglas_. In _St. Ronan's Well_ there is a
larger proportion of non-dramatic mottoes, as in most of the later
novels, but we find represented nine of Shakspere's plays and one of
Beaumont and Fletcher's. _The Legend of Montrose_ (chapter XIV) has a
motto from Suckling's _Brennoralt_. In _Anne of Geierstein_ ten of
Shakspere's plays were drawn upon, and _Manfred_ was twice used. Scott
made his chapters much longer in these later novels, and used fewer
mottoes, but the evidence of the selections would seem to indicate
that he had lost something of his early familiarity with dramatic
literature.]

[Footnote 132: Hazlitt's _Characters of Shakespeare's Plays_ appeared
in 1817; his _Lectures on the Dramatic Literature of the Age of Queen
Elizabeth_ in 1821.]

[Footnote 133: Scott first began to fabricate occasional mottoes for
his chapters during the composition of _The Antiquary_ in 1816.]

[Footnote 134: Saintsbury in _Macmillan's Magazine_, lxx: 323. Scott's
style in many sages is strongly colored by the influence of
Shakspere.]

[Footnote 135: Introduction by Lang to _The Fortunes of Nigel_.]

[Footnote 136: It is possible that among the various jobs of editing
undertaken by Scott with a view to keeping the Ballantyne types busy,
were certain collections of dramas. _Ancient British Drama_, in three
volumes, and _Modern British Drama_, in five volumes, published in
1810 and 1811, are sometimes attributed to Scott in library
catalogues, but on what authority it seems impossible to discover.
There is almost no commentary in the _Ancient British Drama_, but the
_Modern British Drama_ contains three brief introductions which I
believe were written by Scott. They show a striking likeness to some
parts of the _Essay on the Drama_ written several years later, and it
is not probable that Scott took his criticism ready-made from another
author. In the preface to the _Ancient British Drama_ we find this
statement: "The present publication is intended to form, with _The
British Drama_ and _Shakspeare_, a complete and uniform collection in
ten volumes of the best English plays." The Shakspeare here referred
to is doubtless that of which Constable the publisher afterwards spoke
in his correspondence with Scott as "Ballantyne's Shakespeare," and
Scott had no hand in the editorship. (_Constable's Correspondence_,
Vol. III, p. 244.)

It is true, however, as R.S. Mackenzie says in his _Life of Scott_,
that Scott "had not only meditated, but partly executed an edition of
Shakespeare." The work was suggested by Constable in 1822, was begun
in 1823 or 1824, and three volumes of the proposed ten were printed by
the time of Constable's financial crash in the beginning of 1826. The
project was sometime afterwards abandoned, and the printed sheets,
which apparently were not bound up, disappeared from view. The first
volume was to be a life of Shakspere by Scott, and this was probably
not begun at all. Of the commentary in the other volumes, Scott was to
have the oversight but Lockhart was to do most of the work. It was not
designed that the critical apparatus should to any great degree
represent original ideas furnished by Lockhart or Scott, but the book
was to be "a sensible Shakespeare, in which the useful and readable
notes should be condensed and separated from the trash." (See the
discussion of the matter in letters between Scott and his publisher
given in the third volume of _Constables Correspondence_. See also
Lang's _Life of Lockhart_, Vol. I, p. 409, and Vol. II, p. 13, and
Mackenzie's _Life of Scott_, pp. 475-6.) The Boston Public Library
contains three volumes which are thought to be a unique copy of so
much of the Scott-Lockhart Shakspere as was printed. (See below, the
Bibliography of books edited by Scott.)

Scott's notes on Beaumont and Fletcher, which he had wished in 1804 to
offer to Gifford, were actually used by Weber in his _Beaumont and
Fletcher_, published about 1810, an edition which was characterized by
Scott as "too carelessly done to be reputable." (_Lockhart_, Vol. IV,
p. 472.)]

[Footnote 137: He seems to have connected heroic plays too closely
with "the romances of Calprenede and Scuderi." See his introduction to
_The Indian Emperor_, Dryden, Vol. II, pp. 317-20; also Vol. I, p. 56,
and Vol. VI, p. 125. On his opinion in regard to the relation between
novels and plays see below, pp. 75-6.]

[Footnote 138: See his comment on Corneille's _Oedipe_, _Dryden_, Vol.
VI, p. 125 and Mr. Saintsbury's note.]

[Footnote 139: _Lockhart_, Vol. III, p. 446.]

[Footnote 140: Hutchinson's _Letters of Scott_, p. 224.]

[Footnote 141: That Scott admired Sackville greatly is evident from
more than one comment. Of _Ferrex and Porrex_ he says, "In Sackville's
part of the play, which comprehends the two last acts, there is some
poetry worthy of the author of the sublime Induction to the Mirror of
Magistrates." (_Dryden_, Vol. II, p. 135.) Elsewhere Scott calls
Sackville "a beautiful poet." (_Fragmenta Regalia_, p. 277. _Secret
History of the Court of James I._, Vol. I, p. 278, note.)]

[Footnote 142: _Dryden_, Vol. II, p. 136.]

[Footnote 143: _Lockhart_, Vol. I, p. 229. See also Vol. III, p. 223.]

[Footnote 144: _Ibid._, Vol. V, p. 322.]

[Footnote 145: See, for example, _Hawthornden_, in _Provincial
Antiquities_.]

[Footnote 146: _Dryden_, Vol. XV, p. 337.]

[Footnote 147: _Ibid._, Vol. I, p. 10.]

[Footnote 148: Note on _Sir Tristrem_, Fytte II., stanza 56.]

[Footnote 149: See Middleton's Plays in the Mermaid edition:
Introduction, Vol. I, pp. viii-ix.]

[Footnote 150: Ticknor, in Allibone's _Dictionary_, Vol. II, p. 1968.]

[Footnote 151: _Journal_, Vol. I, p. 234; _Lockhart_, Vol. V, p. 23.]

[Footnote 152: See Scott's article on Moliere, _Foreign Quarterly
Review_, February, 1828.]

[Footnote 153: _Essay on Drama_; _Dryden_, Vol. I, p. 101 ff., Vol.
II, pp. 317-20, Vol. IV, p. 4.]

[Footnote 154: _Dryden_, Vol. IV, p. 4.]

[Footnote 155: Article on Moliere, _Foreign Quarterly Review_,
February, 1828.]

[Footnote 156: _Lockhart_, Vol. I, p. 431.]

[Footnote 157: Review of _Kelly's Reminiscences and the Life of
Kemble_, _Quarterly Review_, June, 1826.]

[Footnote 158: _Ibid._]

[Footnote 159: _Dryden_, Vol. VI, p. 128.]

[Footnote 160: _In Provincial Antiquities_ (Borthwick Castle). Scott
cites parallels from _Sir John Oldcastle, The Pinner of Wakefield_,
and one of Nash's pamphlets, for a curious incident in Scottish
history.]

[Footnote 161: _Lockhart_, Vol. I, p. 431. This search among
seventeenth century pamphlets may have suggested to Scott the need of
a new edition of _Somers' Tracts_. Apparently he arranged with the
publishers in 1807 to undertake this task, but the first volume did
not appear till 1809. (_Lockhart_, Vol. II, p. 10, and see below, pp.
89-90, for an account of Scott's edition of the _Tracts_.) Some of his
materials for the _Dryden_ were taken from this collection, but more
from the Luttrell collection, to which he refers in the
Advertisement.]

[Footnote 162: _Lockhart_, Vol. I, p. 433. Scott's _Dryden_ appeared
in 1808, and with some slight changes in 1821; as reedited by Mr.
Saintsbury it was published in 1882-1893. It was the first complete
and uniform edition of Dryden's works, and it remains the only one.
The dramatic works had appeared in folio in 1701. They were edited by
Congreve in 1717, and Scott used Congreve's text. The non-dramatic
poems were also published in 1701 in folio. They appeared in more
convenient forms in 1741, 1743, and 1760, but of these editions only
the last was reasonably complete. In 1800 the Critical and
Miscellaneous Prose Works were edited by Malone, who added a Life of
Dryden which has furnished a large part of the material used by
biographers since his time. This biography was badly written, but with
Johnson's brilliant essay it was the only Life of Dryden before
Scott's that was worth considering. An edition of Dryden's poems, with
notes by Joseph Warton and others, appeared in 1811, but seems to have
been prepared before Scott's edition was published. The text of this
is very incorrect. Since then the non-dramatic poems have been
published several times. Mr. Christie said in his preface to the Globe
edition: "Sir Walter Scott's is the last important edition of Dryden,
as it is indeed still the only general collection of his works; and it
is to be regretted that that distinguished man did not give as much
pains to the purification of Dryden's text as he did to his excellent
biography and to the notes which enrich the edition."]

[Footnote 163: Editor's Preface.]

[Footnote 164: _Dryden_, Vol. IX, p. 226.]

[Footnote 165: _Ibid._, Vol. IX, p. 2.]

[Footnote 166: In this connection Scott's review of Todd's edition of
Spenser is interesting. He takes exception to the lack of an
appearance of continuity in the biography, caused by the long
quotations included in the body of the narrative; and censures the
editor for not having used the history of Italian poetry in
elucidating Spenser's work. (_Edinburgh Review_, October, 1805.)]

[Footnote 167: Review of Todd's _Spenser_.]

[Footnote 168: _Dryden_, Vol. I, p. 6.]

[Footnote 169: _Familiar Letters_, Vol. I, p. 229; and _Dryden_, Vol.
I, p. 6.]

[Footnote 170: _Dryden_, Vol. I, pp. 402-3.]

[Footnote 171: _Dryden_, Vol. I, p. 403.]

[Footnote 172: _Ibid._, p. 404. Mr. Saintsbury thinks that Scott's
prefatory introductions to the plays are often "both meagre and
depreciatory"; also that Scott's judgment on Dryden's letters is
rather harsh, for him, and that after he had begun to write novels he
would not have been so impatient of remarks on "turkeys,
marrow-puddings, and bacon."]

[Footnote 173: _Ibid._, Vol. I, p. 405.]

[Footnote 174: _Ibid._, Vol. X, p. 307 ff.]

[Footnote 175: _Ibid._, Vol. XIV, pp. 136 and 146.]

[Footnote 176: _Ibid._, Vol. I, p. 405.]

[Footnote 177: In order to give a more specific view of Scott's
methods, two or three of the introductions to well-known poems may be
briefly analysed. The introduction to _Absalom and Achitophel_
occupies 111/2 pages, of which about 21/2 are given to quotation from a
tract which Scott thought furnished the argument to Dryden, and which
was unnoticed by any former commentator. Scott's remarks follow this
outline: Position of the poem in literature, and history of its
composition; origin of the particular allegory as applied to modern
politics; a parallel use of the allegory (with a quotation from
_Somers' Tracts_ in illustrations); aptness of the allegory; merits of
the satire--treatment of Monmouth and other main characters; changes
in the second edition to mitigate the satire; characterization of the
poem as having few flights of imagination but much correctness of
taste as well as fire and spirit; other objections by Johnson refuted;
success of the poem; history of the first publication and of the
replies and congratulatory poems; editions, and Latin versions. The
notes on this poem are historical and very full, but the introduction
contains as much literary as historical comment. _Religio Laici_ is
prefaced by 8 pages of introduction, in which are discussed the motive
of the writing, the argument, the title, the purpose of the poem, and
its reputation. Dryden's style in didactic poetry is compared with
Cowper's, to the disadvantage of the later poet. The introduction to
_The Hind and the Panther_ is 20 pages long, and discusses the history
of the period as well as the argument of the poem, its style, the
subject of fables in general, and the effects the poem produced. The
notes on this poem are copious. As he discussed the _Fables_ in the
_Life of Dryden_, Scott gave them no general introduction, and for
each poem he wrote only a slight preface, telling something of the
source and pointing out special beauties. His notes vary greatly in
abundance. Those on _Palamon and Arcite_, _e.g._, are brief,
explaining terms of chivalry and heraldry, but not giving literary or
linguistic comment.]

[Footnote 178: _Dryden_, Vol. XIII, p. 324.]

[Footnote 179: _Ibid._, Vol. XII, p. 20.]

[Footnote 180: _Ibid._, Vol. X, p. 213.]

[Footnote 181: _Ibid._, Vol. I, p. 411.]

[Footnote 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.]

[Footnote 183: _Dryden_, Vol. X, p. 26.]

[Footnote 184: For example see _Anne of Geierstein_, Vol. II, p. 307.]

[Footnote 185: _Letters to Heber_, p. 292.]

[Footnote 186: The price offered for the _Swift_ was L1500. 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_.)]

[Footnote 187: _Correspondence of C.K. Sharpe_, Vol. II, p. 178.]

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

[Footnote 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."]

[Footnote 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."]

[Footnote 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.)]

[Footnote 192: _Lockhart_, Vol. II, p. 20.]

[Footnote 193: September, 1816.]

[Footnote 194: _Swift_ Vol. XVII, p. 4, note.]

[Footnote 195: _Life of Swift_, conclusion.]

[Footnote 196: _Swift_, Vol. XI, p. 12.]

[Footnote 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.]

[Footnote 198: See above, p. 4.]

[Footnote 199: _Horace Walpole_, in _Lives of the Novelists_.]

[Footnote 200: _Lockhart_, Vol. III, p. 512.]

[Footnote 201: _Quarterly_, September, 1826.]

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

[Footnote 203: _The Mid-Eighteenth Century_, by J.H. Millar, p. 143,
note.]

[Footnote 204: _Ibid._, p. 159. Scott compares Fielding and Smollett
at some length in the _Life of Smollett_.]

[Footnote 205: _Life of Le Sage_.]

[Footnote 206: _Life of Richardson_.]

[Footnote 207: _Life of Fielding_.]

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

[Footnote 209: _Life of Sterne_.]

[Footnote 210: _Lockhart_, Vol. I, p. 35.]

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

[Footnote 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.]

[Footnote 213: Scott uses the word.]

[Footnote 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.)]

[Footnote 215: See also _The Fortunes of Nigel_, Vol. II, pp. 88-9.]

[Footnote 216: _Life of Clara Reeve_.]

[Footnote 217: Blackwood, March, 1818.]

[Footnote 218: _Quarterly_, May, 1818.]

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

[Footnote 220: _Life of Richardson_.]

[Footnote 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.]

[Footnote 222: _Lockhart_, Vol. II, p. 132.]

[Footnote 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.)]

[Footnote 224: _Life of Johnson_.]

[Footnote 225: Introduction to _Chronicles of the Canongate_.]

[Footnote 226: _Dryden_, Vol. XI, p. 81, note; Review of the _Life and
Works of John Home_, _Quarterly_, June, 1827.]

[Footnote 227: _Familiar Letters_, Vol. II, p. 44.]

[Footnote 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.)]

[Footnote 229: _Swift_, Vol. III, p. 36.]

[Footnote 230: _Ibid._, Vol. XIII, p. 24.]

[Footnote 231: _Correspondence of C.K. Sharpe_, Vol. II, p. 194.]

[Footnote 232: _Journal_, Vol. I, p. 67; _Lockhart_, Vol. IV, p. 401.]

[Footnote 233: Allan Cunningham's _Life of Scott_, p. 96.]

[Footnote 234: _Lockhart_, Vol. I, p. 483.]

[Footnote 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.)]

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