can't ask his
friends to dinner without an unworthy device to hide his poverty, as
with the passionate lover whose mistress has her heart broken. In truth,
this criticism as to the absence of high passion reminds us again that
Scott was a thorough Scotsman, and--for it is necessary, even now, to
avoid the queer misconception which confounds together the most distinct
races--a thorough Saxon. He belonged, that is, to the race which has in
the most eminent degree the typical English qualities. Especially his
intellect had a strong substratum of downright dogged common sense; his
religion, one may conjecture, was pretty much that of all men of sense
in his time. It was that of the society which had produced and been
influenced by Hume and Adam Smith; which had dropped its old dogmas
without becoming openly sceptical, but which emphatically took 'common
sense' for the motto of its philosophy. It was equally afraid of bigotry
and scepticism and had manufactured a creed out of decent compromises
which served well enough for ordinary purposes. Even Hume, a sceptic in
theory, was a Tory and a Scottish patriot in politics. Scott, who cared
nothing for abstract philosophy, did not bother himself to form any
definite system of opinions; he shared Hume's political prejudices
without inquiring into his philosophy. He thoroughly detested the
dogmatism of the John Knox variety, and considered the Episcopal Church
to offer the religion for a gentleman. But his common sense in such
matters was chiefly shown by not asking awkward questions and adopting
the creed which was most to his taste without committing himself to any
strong persuasion as to abstract truth. He would, on the whole, leave
such matters alone, an attitude of mind which was not to Carlyle's
taste. In the purely artistic direction, this common sense is partly
responsible for the defect which has been so often noticed in Scott's
heroes. Your genuine Scot is indeed as capable of intense passion as any
human being in the world. Burns is proof enough of the fact if anyone
doubted it. But Scott was a man of more massive and less impulsive
character. If he had strong passions, they were ruled by his common
sense; he kept them well in hand, and did not write till the period of
youthful effervescence was over. His heroes always seem to be described
from the point of view of a man old enough to see the folly of youthful
passion or too old fully to sympathise with it. They are chief