should not be sparing
of time; and if it be true, that in every thing which has a principle of
life, the period of gestation and growth bears some proportion to that
of the whole future existence, the author now before us should tremble
when he looks back on the miracles of his own facility.

We have dwelt longer on the beauties and defects of this poem, than we
are afraid will be agreeable either to the partial or the indifferent;
not only because we look upon it as a misapplication, in some degree, of
very extraordinary talents, but because we cannot help considering it as
the foundation of a new school, which may hereafter occasion no little
annoyance both to us and to the public. Mr Scott has hitherto filled the
whole stage himself; and the very splendour of his success has probably
operated, as yet, rather to deter, than to encourage, the herd of rivals
and imitators: but if, by the help of the good parts of his poem, he
succeeds in suborning the verdict of the public in favour of the bad
parts also, and establishes an indiscriminate taste for chivalrous
legends and romances in irregular rhime, he may depend upon having as
many copyists as Mrs Radcliffe or Schiller, and upon becoming the
founder of a new schism in the catholic poetical church, for which, in
spite of all our exertions, there will probably be no cure, but in the
extravagance of the last and lowest of its followers. It is for this
reason that we conceive it to be our duty to make one strong effort to
bring back the great apostle of the heresy to the wholesome creed of
his instructors, and to stop the insurrection before it becomes
desperate and senseless, by persuading the leader to return to his duty
and allegiance. We admire Mr Scott's genius as much as any of those who
may be misled by its perversion; and, like the curate and the barber in
Don Quixote, lament the day when a gentleman of such endowments was
corrupted by the wicked tales of knight-errantry and enchantment.

We have left ourselves no room to say any thing of the epistolary
effusions which are prefixed to each of the cantos. They certainly are
not among the happiest productions of Mr Scott's muse. They want
interest in the subjects, and finish in the execution. There is too much
of them about the personal and private feelings and affairs of the
author; and too much of the remainder about the most trite commonplaces
of politics and poetry. There is a good deal of spirit, however, and a