things to be said against Scott as a poet are
two. First, that his genius did not incline him either to the expression
of the highest passion or to that of the deepest meditation, in which
directions the utterances of the very greatest poetry are wont to lie.
In the second place, that the extreme fertility and fluency which cannot
be said to have improved even his prose work are, from the nature of the
case, far more evident, and far more damagingly evident, in his verse.
He is a poet of description, of action, of narration, rather than of
intense feeling or thought. Yet in his own special divisions of the
simpler lyric and of lyrical narrative he sometimes attains the
exquisite, and rarely sinks below a quality which is fitted to give the
poetical delight to a very large number of by no means contemptible
persons. It appears to me at least, that on no sound theory of poetical
criticism can Scott be ranked as a poet below Byron, who was his
imitator in narrative and his inferior in lyric. But it may be admitted
that this was not the opinion of most contemporaries of the two, and
that, much as the poetry of Byron has sunk in critical estimation during
the last half century, and slight as are the signs of its recovery,
those who do not think very highly of the poetry of the pupil do not, as
a rule, show much greater enthusiasm for that of the master.

Byron, it is true, was only half a pupil of Scott's, and (oddly enough
for the poet, who, with Scott, was recognised as leader by the Romantic
schools of all Europe) had more than a hankering after the classical
ideals in literature. Yet how much of this was due to wilful "pose" and
a desire not to follow the prevailing school of the day is a question
difficult to answer--as indeed are many connected with Byron, whose
utterances, even in private letters, are very seldom to be taken with
absolute confidence in their sincerity. The poet's character did no
discredit to the doctrines of heredity. His family was one of
considerable distinction and great age; but his father, Captain John
Byron, who never came to the title, was a _roue_ of the worst character,
and the cousin whom the poet succeeded had earned the name of the Wicked
Lord. His mother, Catherine Gordon of Gight, was of an excellent Scotch
stock, and an heiress; though her rascally husband made away with her
money. But she had a most violent temper, and seems to have had
absolutely no claims except those of birth to the