For the poet Crabbe, Scott, like Byron and Wordsworth,[303] had a steady and high admiration. In the Sunday evening readings that Lockhart describes as being so pleasant a feature of the life of the family in Edinburgh, Crabbe was perhaps the chief standing resource after Shakspere.[304] His work was particularly recommended to the young people of the family,[305] and when the venerable poet visited the Scotts in 1822, he was received as a man whom they always looked upon as nobly gifted. Scott once wrote of him: "I think if he had cultivated the sublime and the pathetic instead of the satirical cast of poetry, he must have stood very high (as indeed he does at any rate) on the list of British poets. His Sir Eustace Grey and The Hall of Justice indicate prodigious talent."[306] Scott did not like Crabbe's choice of subjects,[307] but he appreciated the "force and vigour" of a poet whom students of our own day are once more beginning to admire, after a period during which he was practically ignored.
Scott's very high estimation of Joanna Baillie has already been mentioned.[308] In this case as in many others he was proud and happy in the personal friendship of the writer whose works he admired. He once wrote to Miss Edgeworth: "I have always felt the value of having access to persons of talent and genius to be the best part of a literary man's prerogative."[309] Almost the earliest of the writers for whose friendship Scott felt grateful was Matthew Lewis, famed as the author of The Monk. Lewis was also something of a poet, and was really helpful to Scott in giving him advice on literary subjects. Though Scott perceived that Lewis's talents "would not stand much creaming"[310] he continued to regard him as one who had had high imagination and a "finer ear for rhythm than Byron's."
Scott felt that his own taste in respect to poetry became more rigorous as he grew older. In 1823 in a letter to Miss Baillie he commented on Mrs. Hemans as "somewhat too poetical for my taste—too many flowers, I mean, and too little fruit—but that may be the cynical criticism of an elderly gentleman; for it is certain that when I was young I read verses of every kind with infinitely more indulgence, because with more pleasure than I can now do—the more shame for me now to refuse the complaisance which I have had so often to solicit."[311] Similarly he speaks in the preface to Kenilworth of having once been delighted with the poems of Mickle and Langhorne: "There is a period in youth when the mere power of numbers has a more strong effect on ear and imagination than in after-life." With these comments we may put Lockhart's sagacious remark: "His propensity to think too well of other men's works sprung, of course, mainly from his modesty and good nature; but the brilliancy of his imagination greatly sustained the delusion. It unconsciously gave precision to the trembling outline, and life and warmth to the vapid colours before him."[312] This and his kindness would account for the latter half of the observation made by his publisher: "I like well Scott's ain bairns—but heaven preserve me from those of his fathering."[313]
I have found no reference to Landor, a poet whom Southey and Wordsworth read with eagerness, but Mr. Forster makes this statement in his Biography of Landor: "Among Landor's papers I found a list, prepared by himself, of resemblances to passages of his own writing to be found in Scott's Tales of the Crusaders. There were several from Gebir.... The poem had made a great impression on Scott, who read it at Southey's suggestion."[314] Forster also notes the fact that Southey, in a letter to Scott written in 1812, spoke very highly of Landor's Count Julian.[315] I am similarly unable to cite any comment by Scott on the writings of Lamb. Was it because Scott's genius clung to Scotland and Lamb's to London, that the two seemed so little to notice each other? It does seem odd that Scott never refers to the delightful Specimens of English Dramatic Poets. At one time Lamb wrote to Sir Walter asking a contribution toward a fund that was being raised to help William Godwin out of pecuniary troubles, and Scott replied, through the artist Haydon, with a cheque for ten pounds and a pleasant message to Mr. Lamb, "whom I should be happy to see in Scotland, though I have not forgotten his metropolitan preference of houses to rocks, and citizens to wild rustics and highland men."[316] Hazlitt and Hunt were two other writers whose literary work Scott ignored.[317] This, as well as his neglect of Lamb's and DeQuincey's essays, may be due largely to the fact that he seldom read newspapers and magazines, and these writers were journalists and contributors to periodicals. Voracious reader as Scott was, he had to economize time somewhere, and the hours saved from papers could be given to books. We do find one or two references to these men as political writers. Scott hoped Lockhart would learn, as editor of the Quarterly, to despise petty adversaries, for "to take notice of such men as Hazlitt and Hunt in the Quarterly would be to introduce them into a world which is scarce conscious of their existence."[318]
Among novelists, those of Scott's contemporaries to whom he gave the highest praise were women. This is, however to be expected, and it is natural to find Jane Austen receiving the highest praise of all; since Scott was emphatically not of the tribe of critics who are able to appreciate only one kind of novel or poem. Her novels seemed to grow upon him and he read them often. It was in connection with her "exquisite touch" that he was moved to reflect, in the words so often quoted from his Journal, "The Big Bow-wow strain I can do myself like any now going."[319] Among the expressions of admiration which occur in his review of Emma,[320] Scott records a characteristic bit of protest in regard to the tendency of Miss Austen and other novelists to make prudence the guiding motive of all their favorite young women characters, especially in matters of the heart. He did not like this pushing out of Cupid to make way for so moderate a virtue as prudence; he thought that it is often good for young people to fall in love without regard to worldly considerations. Scott rated Miss Edgeworth nearly as high as Miss Austen, and hers is the added honor of having inspired the author of Waverley with a desire to emulate her power.[321] With these two novelists he associated Miss Ferrier, as well as the somewhat earlier writer, Fanny Burney.[322]
Aside from these women and Henry Mackenzie, perhaps the highest praise that Scott bestowed on any contemporary novelist was given to Cooper. Here, as in the case of Byron, Scott seemed to ignore the other writer's indebtedness to himself. He speaks, in the general preface to the Waverley Novels, of "that striking field in which Mr. Cooper has achieved so many triumphs"; and at another time calls him "the justly celebrated American novelist." In his Journal he comments on The Red Rover[323] and The Prairie;[324] The Pilot he recommends warmly in a letter to Miss Edgeworth.[325]
The personal relations between "the Scotch and American lions," as Scott called himself and Cooper, when they met in Parisian society in 1826,[326] had some interesting consequences. Cooper suggested to Scott that he try to secure for himself part of the profits arising from the publication of his works in America, by entering them as the property of some citizen.[327] They finally concluded to substitute for this plan one suggested by Scott, which involved the writing by the Author of Waverley, of a letter addressed to Cooper, to be transmitted by him to some American publisher who would undertake the publication of an authorized edition of which half the profits should go to the author. Future works were to be sent over to this publisher in advance of their appearance in England. The letter was really an appeal to the justice of the American people, and contained an allusion to the publication of Irving's works in England according to a plan very similar to that proposed by Scott. But the scheme failed here in America, and apparently the letter was not made public until Cooper, irritated by the appearance in Lockhart's Life of Scott of Sir Walter's comments on his personal manner,[328] explained the affair (except the reason for dropping the plan), and published the correspondence in the Knickerbocker Magazine for April, 1838.[329] Later in the same year Cooper wrote a severe review of the biography of Scott, attacking his character in a way that seems absurdly exaggerated.[330] Yet Charles Sumner seems to have thought that Cooper made his points, and Mr. Lounsbury is inclined to agree with him.[331]
One of the milder strictures in Cooper's review was as follows "As he was ambitious of, so was he careful to preserve, his personal popularity, of which we have a striking proof in the studied kindnesses that for years were laid before this country in deeds and words, as compared with his real acts and sentiments toward America and Americans which are now revealed in his letters." A passage which doubtless roused Cooper's ire may be quoted. Of the Americans Scott said, in a letter to Miss Edgeworth, "They are a people possessed of very considerable energy, quickened and brought into eager action by an honourable love of their country and pride in their institutions; but they are as yet rude in their ideas of social intercourse, and totally ignorant, speaking generally, of all the art of good breeding, which consists chiefly in a postponement of one's own petty wishes or comforts to those of others. By rude questions and observations, an absolute disrespect to other people's feelings, and a ready indulgence of their own, they make one feverish in their company, though perhaps you may be ashamed to confess the reason. But this will wear off and is already wearing away. Men, when they have once got benches, will soon fall into the use of cushions. They are advancing in the lists of our literature, and they will not be long deficient in the petite morale, especially as they have, like ourselves, the rage for travelling."[332]
Scott liked George Ticknor,[333] and he called Washington Irving "one of the best and pleasantest acquaintances I have made this many a day."[334] In later life he congratulated himself on having from the first foreseen Irving's success.[335] When we remember also that Scott quotes from Poor Richard,[336] refers to Cotton Mather's Magnalia,[337] and speaks of "the American Brown" as one whose novels might be reprinted in England,[338] we ought probably to conclude that his acquaintance with our literature was as comprehensive as could have been expected.
Among continental writers belonging to his period, Goethe was very properly the one for whom Scott had the strongest admiration. But we find comparatively few references to his reading the great German after the early period of translation. Throughout Lockhart's Life of Scott it is evident that the biographer had a more thorough acquaintance with Goethe than had Scott, and it seems probable that the younger man influenced the elder in his judgment on Faust and on Goethe's character. In the Introduction to Quentin Durward we find an interesting comment on Goethe's success in creating a really wicked Mephistopheles, who escapes the noble dignity that Milton and Byron gave to their pictures of Satan. Goethe and Scott exchanged letters once in 1827,[339] and it was a personal grief to Sir Walter that the German poet's death prevented a visit Scott proposed to make him in 1832. In Anne of Geierstein Goethe is called "an author born to arouse the slumbering fame of his country";[340] and in the Journal Scott characterizes him as "the Ariosto at once and almost the Voltaire of Germany."[341] The suggestion for the character of Fenella in Peveril of the Peak was taken from Goethe, as we learn by Scott's acknowledgment in the Introduction. Another German from whom Scott borrowed a suggestion—this time for the unlucky "White Lady of Avenel"—was the Baron de la Motte Fouqué. Scott was evidently interested in his work, though he thought Fouqué sometimes used such a profusion of historical and antiquarian lore that readers would find it difficult to follow the narrative.[342] Sir Walter asked his son to tell the Baroness de la Motte Fouqué that he had been much interested in her writings and those of the Baron, and added, "It will be civil, for folks like to know that they are known and respected beyond the limits of their own country."[343]