[134] Saintsbury in Macmillan's Magazine, lxx: 323. Scott's style in many sages is strongly colored by the influence of Shakspere.
[135] Introduction by Lang to The Fortunes of Nigel.
[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.)
[137] He seems to have connected heroic plays too closely with "the romances of Calprenède and Scudéri." 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.
[138] See his comment on Corneille's Oedipe, Dryden, Vol. VI, p. 125 and Mr. Saintsbury's note.
[139] Lockhart, Vol. III, p. 446.
[140] Hutchinson's Letters of Scott, p. 224.
[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.)