Of _Marmion_ he told Southey, "I had not time to write the poem
shorter."[353]

His grief on these points seems qualified, however, by a conviction that
he could not write with deliberation and method and still produce the
effect of vivacious spontaneity. He thought Fielding was almost the only
novelist who had thoroughly succeeded in combining these various
admirable qualities,[354] and he said in this connection, "To demand
equal correctness and felicity in those who may follow in the track of
that illustrious novelist, would be to fetter too much the power of
giving pleasure, by surrounding it with penal rules; since of this sort
of light literature it may be especially said--_tout genre est permis,
hors le genre ennuyeux_."[355] "To confess to you the truth," says the
"Author" in the Introductory Epistle to _Nigel_, "the works and passages
in which I have succeeded, have uniformly been written with the greatest
rapidity; and when I have seen some of these placed in opposition with
others, and commended as more highly finished, I could appeal to pen and
standish, that the parts in which I have come feebly off were by much
the more laboured." He attempted to write _Rokeby_ with great care, but
threw the first version into the fire because he concluded that he had
"corrected the spirit out of it, as a lively pupil is sometimes flogged
into a dunce by a severe schoolmaster."[356] He was better satisfied
with the result when he resumed his pen in his "old Cossack
manner."[357] Similarly he writes of John Home's tragedy, _Douglas_,
that the finest scene was, "we learn with pleasure but without
surprise," unchanged from the first draft;[358] and elsewhere he speaks
of the greater chance for popularity of the "bold, decisive, but
light-touched strain of poetry or narrative in literary composition,"
over the "more highly-wrought performance."[359]

A good exposition of Scott's real opinion in regard to his own style is
to be found in his review of _Tales of My Landlord_. Some parts of the
article were probably inserted by his friend William Erskine, but the
section I quote bears unmistakable evidence that it was written by the
author himself, for it expresses that combined reprobation and approval
of his style which is amusingly characteristic of him. He says: "Our
author has told us that it was his object to present a series of scenes
and characters connected with Scotland in its past and present state,
and we must own tha