is imitators--Devices to secure
novelty--His resolution to write history--Historical motives of his
novels--His comments on the use of historical material--His verdict
in regard to his descriptive abilities and methods--Lack of emphasis
on the ethical aspect of his work--His judgment on the position of
the novel in literature.

"Scott is invariably his own best critic," says Mr. Andrew Lang.[348] Of
this Scott was not himself in the least convinced, and when we recall
how, to please his printer, James Ballantyne, he tacked on a last scene
to _Rokeby_, resuscitated the dead Athelstane in _Ivanhoe_, and
eliminated the main motive of _St. Ronan's Well_, we wish he had been
more uniformly inclined to trust his own critical judgment.

He never scheduled the qualities of his own genius. A man who could
sincerely say what he did about literary immortality would not be apt to
develop any dogma in regard to his artistic achievement. "Let me please
my own generation," he said, "and let those that come after us judge of
their taste and my performances as they please; the anticipation of
their neglect or censure will affect me very little."[349] His opinions
about his own work are to be deduced largely from casual remarks
scattered through his letters and journals. His introductions to his
novels, in the _Opus Magnum_, are valuable sources, however, and the
"Epistle" preceding _The Fortunes of Nigel_ is a mine of material,
though, unlike the later introductions, it was written "according to the
trick," when he was still preserving his anonymity. We have an article
which he wrote for the _Quarterly_ on two of his own books, the review
of _Tales of My Landlord_.[350] His criticism of the work of other
people is also very helpful in this connection, since from it we may
learn what qualities he wished to find in poetry and in the novel, as
well as in history, biography, and criticism, the fields in which he did
much, though less famous work.

The student of his criticism is struck at once by the fact that the
qualities which Scott particularly admired in literature were those for
which he was himself preeminent. Yet he cannot be accused, as Poe may
be, of constructing a theory that those types of art were greatest which
he found himself most skilful in exemplifying. Scott's nature was of
that most efficient kind that enables a man to do such things as he
likes to see done. We cannot argue that he was incapable o