REATNESS OF SCOTT[52]

Into the question whether Scott was a great man or not, we do not
propose to enter deeply. It is, as too usual, a question about words.
There can be no doubt but many men have been named and painted _great_
who were vastly smaller than he, as little doubt moreover that of the
specially _good_ a very large portion, according to any genuine
standard of man's worth, were worthless in comparison to him. He for
whom Scott is great may most innocently name him so; may with
advantage admire his great qualities, and ought with sincere heart to
emulate him. At the same time, it is good that there be a certain
degree of precision in our epithets. It is good to understand, for one
thing, that no popularity, and open-mouthed wonder of all the world,
continued even for a long series of years, can make a man great. Such
popularity is a remarkable fortune; indicates a great adaptation of
the man to his element of circumstances; but may or may not indicate
anything great in the man. To our imagination, as above hinted, there
is a certain apotheosis in it; but in the reality no apotheosis at
all. Popularity is as a blaze of illumination, or alas, of
conflagration kindled round a man; _showing_ what is in him; not
putting the smallest item more into him; often abstracting much from
him; conflagrating the poor man himself into ashes and _caput
mortuum_!

And then, by the nature of it, such popularity is transient; your
"series of years," quite unexpectedly, sometimes almost all on a sudden,
terminates! For the stupidity of men, especially of men congregated in
masses round an object, is extreme. What illuminations and
conflagrations have kindled themselves, as if new heavenly suns had
risen, which proved only to be tar-barrels, and terrestrial locks of
straw! Profane princesses cried out, "One God; one Farinelli!"[53]--and
whither now have they and Farinelli danced? In literature, too, there
have been seen popularities greater even than Scott's, and nothing
perennial in the interior of them. Lope de Vega, whom all the world
swore by, and made a proverb of; who could make a five-act tragedy in
almost as many hours; the greatest of all popularities past or present,
and perhaps one of the greatest men that ever ranked among popularities:
Lope himself, so radiant, far-shining, has not proved to be a sun or
star of the firmament; but is as good as lost and gone out, or plays at
best, in the eyes of some few, as a vag