Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature | Page 5

When, in addition, we remember
the mass of his critical work written for periodicals, and the number of
minor volumes he edited, it becomes evident that a study of Scott
which disregards this part of his work can present only a one-sided
view of his achievement. And the qualities of his abundant criticism,
especially its large fresh sanity, seem to make it worthy of closer
analysis than it usually receives, not only because it helps to reveal
Scott's genius, but also on account of the historical and ethical
importance which always attaches to the ideals, literary and other, of a
noble man and a great writer.
CHAPTER II

SCOTT'S QUALIFICATIONS AS CRITIC
Wide reading Scott's first qualification--Scott the antiquary--Character
of his interest in history--His imagination--His knowledge of practical
affairs--Common-sense in criticism--Cheerfulness, good-humor, and
optimism--General aspect of Scott's critical work.
Wide and appreciative reading was Scott's first qualification for critical
work. A memory that retained an incredible amount of what he read
was the second. One of the severest censures he ever expressed was in
regard to Godwin, who, he thought, undertook to do scholarly work
without adequate equipment. "We would advise him," Scott said in his
review of Godwin's Life of Chaucer, "in future to read before he writes,
and not merely while he is writing." Scott himself had accumulated a
store of literary materials, and he used them according to the dictates of
a temperament which had vivid interests on many sides.
We may distinguish three points of view which were habitual to Scott,
and which determined the direction of his creative work, as well as the
tone of his criticism. These were--as all the world knows--the historical,
the romantic, the practical.
He was, as he often chose to call himself, an antiquary; he felt the
appeal of all that was old and curious. But he was much more than that.
The typical antiquary has his mind so thoroughly devoted to the past
that the present seems remote to him. The sheer intellectual capacity of
such a man as Scott might be enough to save him from such a
limitation, for he could give to the past as much attention as an ordinary
man could muster, and still have interest for contemporary affairs; but
his capacity was not all that saved Scott. He viewed the past always as
filled with living men, whose chief occupation was to think and feel
rather than to provide towers and armor for the delectation of future
antiquaries.[7] A sympathetic student of his work has said, "There is ...
throughout the poetry of this author, even when he leads us to the
remotest wildernesses and the most desolate monuments of antiquity, a
constant reference to the feelings of man in his social condition."[8]
The past, to the author of Kenilworth, was only the far end of the
present, and he believed that the most useful result of the study of

history is a comprehension of the real quality of one's own period and a
wisdom in the conduct of present day affairs.[9]
The favorite pursuits of Scott's youth indicate that his characteristic
taste showed itself early; indeed it is said that he retained his boyish
traits more completely than most people do. We can trace much of his
love of the past to the family traditions which made the adventurous
life of his ancestors vividly real to him. The annals of the Scotts were
his earliest study, and he developed such an affection for his
freebooting grandsires that in his manhood he confessed to an
unconquerable liking for the robbers and captains of banditti of his
romances, characters who could not be prevented from usurping the
place of the heroes. "I was always a willing listener to tales of broil and
battle and hubbub of every kind," he wrote in later life, "and now I look
back upon it, I think what a godsend I must have been while a boy to
the old Trojans of 1745, nay 1715, who used to frequent my father's
house, and who knew as little as I did for what market I was laying up
the raw materials of their oft-told tales."[10] What attracted him in his
boyhood, and what continued to attract him, was the picturesque
incident, the color of the past, the mere look of its varied activity. The
philosophy of history was gradually revealed to him, however, and his
generalizing faculty found congenial employment in tracing out the
relation of men to movements, of national impulses to world history.
But however much he might exercise his analytical powers, history was
never abstract to him, nor did it require an effort for him to conjure up
scenes of the past. An acquaintance with the stores of early literature
served to give him the spirit of remote times as