Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature | Page 8

ancestors did of old."[30]
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. And since he was only secondarily a
critic, it is natural that his critical opinions should not have been
erected into any system. But while they are essentially desultory, they
are the ideas of a man whose information and enthusiasm extended

through a wide range of studies; and they are rendered impressive by
the abundance, variety, and energy, which mark them as characteristic
of Scott.
CHAPTER III
SCOTT'S WORK AS STUDENT AND EDITOR IN THE FIELD OF
LITERARY HISTORY
THE MEDIAEVAL PERIOD
Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border
Scott's early interest in ballads--Casual origin of the
Minstrelsy--Importance of the book in Scott's career--Plan of the
book--Mediaeval scholarship of Scott's time--His theory as to the origin
of ballads and their deterioration--His attitude toward the work of
previous editors--His method of forming texts--Kinds of changes he
made--His qualifications for emending old poetry--Modern imitations
of the ballad included in the Minstrelsy--Remarks on the ballad
style--Impossibility of a scientific treatment of folk-poetry in Scott's
time--Real importance of the Minstrelsy.
We think of the Border Minstrelsy as the first work which resulted
from the preparation of Scott's whole youth, between the days when he
insisted on shouting the lines of Hardyknute into the ears of the irate
clergyman making a parish call, and the time when he and his equally
ardent friends gathered their ballads from the lips of old women among
the hills. But we have seen that the inspiration for his first attempts at
writing poetry came only indirectly from the ballads of his own country.
We learn from the introduction to the third part of the Minstrelsy that
some of the young men of Scott's circle in Edinburgh were stimulated
by what the novelist, Henry Mackenzie, told them of the beauties of
German literature, to form a class for the study of that language. This
was when Scott was twenty-one, but it was still four years before he
found himself writing those translations which mark the sufficiently
modest beginning of his literary career. His enthusiasm for German
literature was not at first tempered by any critical discrimination, if we

may judge from the opinions of one or two of his friends who labored
to point out to him the extravagance and false sentiment which he was
too ready to admire along with the real genius of some of his
models.[31] Apparently their efforts were useful, for in a review
written in 1806 we find Scott, in a remark on Bürger, referring to "the
taste for outrageous sensibility, which disgraces most German
poetry."[32] His special interest in the Germans was an early mood
which seems not to have returned. After the process of translation had
discovered to him his verse-making faculty, he naturally passed on to
the writing of original poems, and circumstances of a half accidental
sort determined that the Scottish ballads which he had always loved
should absorb his attention for the next two or three years.
The publication of a book of ballads was first suggested by Scott as an
opportunity for his friend Ballantyne to exhibit his skill as a printer and
so increase his business. "I have been for years collecting old Border
ballads," Scott remarked, "and I think I could with little trouble put
together such a selection from them as might make a neat little volume
to sell for four or five shillings."[33] From this casual proposition
resulted The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, published in three
volumes in 1802-3 and often revised and reissued during the editor's
lifetime.
This book and the prefaces to his own novels are likely to be thought of
first when Scott is spoken of as a critic. The connection between the
Minstrelsy and the novels has often been pointed out, ever since the day
of the contemporary who, on reading the ballads with their
introductions, exclaimed that in that book were the elements of a
hundred historical romances.[34] The interest of the earlier work is
undoubtedly multiplied by the associations in the light of which we
read it--associations connected with the editor's whole experience as an
author, from the Lay of the Last Minstrel to Castle Dangerous.
Important as the Minstrelsy is from the point of view of literary
criticism, the material of its introductions is chiefly