Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature

by Margaret Ball

[84] Waverley, and Claverhouse in Old Mortality.

[85] Lockhart, Vol. I, pp. 480 and 482. Familiar Letters, Vol. I, p. 147.

[86] Essay on Romance.

[87] See Gaston Paris, La Littérature Française au Moyen Age, 1^ère partie, ch. IV.

[88] Review of Metrical Romances, Edinburgh Review, January, 1806.

[89] Journal, Vol. II, pp. 258-259.

[90] Essay on Romance.

[91] Familiar Letters, Vol. I, p. 46.

[92] Memoir in the Globe edition of Scott's poems.

[93] Scott adopted the conclusions of Malcolm Laing, who edited Macpherson's poems and adduced parallel passages from "a mass of poetry, enough to serve any six gentle readers for their lifetime," as the reviewer says. The most of these parallels were found in "Homer, Virgil, and their two translators; Milton, Thomson, Young, Gray, Mason, Home, and the English Bible." Although he was convinced by the argument, Scott saw that the editor was in some cases misled by his own ingenuity.