The Project Gutenberg EBook of Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature
by Margaret Ball

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Title: Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature

Author: Margaret Ball

Release Date: September 18, 2005 [EBook #16715]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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[Transcriber's note: All footnotes have been gathered at
the end of the text.]

SIR WALTER SCOTT

AS A CRITIC OF LITERATURE

BY

MARGARET BALL, PH.D.

New York
THE COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS
1907

Copyright, 1907
BY THE COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS
Printed from type November, 1907

PRESS OF
THE NEW ERA PRINTING COMPANY
LANCASTER, PA.

PREFACE

The lack of any adequate discussion of Scott's critical work is a
sufficient reason for the undertaking of this study, the subject of
which was suggested to me more than three years ago by Professor Trent
of Columbia University. We still use critical essays and monumental
editions prepared by the author of the Waverley novels, but the
criticism has been so overshadowed by the romances that its importance
is scarcely recognized. It is valuable in itself, as well as in the
opportunity it offers of considering the relation of the critical to the
creative mood, an especially interesting problem when it is presented
concretely in the work of a great writer.

No complete bibliography of Scott's writings has been published, and
perhaps none is possible in the case of an author who wrote so much
anonymously. The present attempt includes some at least of the books and
articles commonly left unnoticed, which are chiefly of a critical or
scholarly character.

I am glad to record my gratitude to Professor William Allan Neilson, now
of Harvard University, and to Professors A.H. Thorndike, W.W. Lawrence,
G.P. Krapp, and J.E. Spingarn, of Columbia, for suggestions in
connection with various parts of the work. From the beginning Professor
Trent has helped me constantly by his advice as well as by the
inspiration of his scholarship, and my debt