ners, of witty and sententious speech, of
situations and incidents, and only secondarily in the technical aspects
of the drama. Reading his novels we could guess that he would care more
for the concrete elements of a play than for the orderly march of events
through the various stages of a formally proper construction. In this
respect he differs from Coleridge; but indeed the two men may be
contrasted at almost every point. In summing up this part of Scott's
criticism we must remember also that it was chiefly incidental. Perhaps
whatever qualities it exhibits are on this account particularly
characteristic: at any rate his opinions on the drama were the reaction
of an unusually capable mind upon a department of literature in which
his reading was all the more fruitful because it followed the lines of a
natural inclination.

THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

_Dryden_

Scott's preparations for his edition of Dryden--Wide Scope of the
work--Scott's estimation of Dryden--Grounds for putting Dryden above
Chaucer and Spenser--Admirable style of the biography--Comments by
Scott on other seventeenth century writers.

The edition of _Dryden's Complete Works_ deserves further notice,
especially since only eight of the eighteen volumes are occupied with
the plays, and these have less commentary than other parts of the works.
In 1805 Scott wrote to his friend George Ellis, "My critical notes will
not be very numerous but I hope to illustrate the political poems, as
_Absalom and Achitophel_, the _Hind and Panther_, etc., with some
curious annotations. I have already made a complete search among some
hundred pamphlets of that pamphlet-writing age, and with considerable
success, as I have found several which throw light on my author."[161]
He added that another edition of Dryden was proposed, and Ellis wrote in
answer, "With regard to your competitors, I feel perfectly at my ease,
because I am convinced that though you should generously furnish them
with all the materials, they would not know how to use them; _non cuivis
hominum contingit_ to write critical notes that anyone will read."[162]

When Scott's Dryden was reedited and reissued in 1882-93 by Professor
Saintsbury, the new editor said: "It certainly deserves the credit of
being one of the best-edited books on a great scale in English, save in
one particular,--the revision of the text."[163] The elaborate
historical notes are left untouched, as being "in general t