dislike the
critic for his savagery than the guilty victim whom he flagellated.[239]
In the early days of _Blackwood's Magazine_ Scott often tried to repress
Lockhart's "wicked wit,"[240] and when Lockhart became editor of the
_Quarterly_ his father-in-law did not always approve of his work. "Don't
like his article on Sheridan's life,"[241] says the _Journal_. "There is
no breadth in it, no general views, the whole flung away in smart but
party criticism. Now, no man can take more general and liberal views of
literature than J.G.L."[242]

With these opinions, Scott was not likely often to undertake the
reviewing of books that did not, in one way or another interest him or
move his admiration; and he would lay as much stress as possible on
their good points. Gifford told him that "fun and feeling" were his
forte.[243] In his early days he was probably somewhat influenced by
Jeffrey's method, and his articles on Todd's _Spenser_ and Godwin's
_Life of Chaucer_ indicate that he could occasionally adopt something of
the tone of the _Edinburgh Review_. Years afterwards he refused to write
an article that Lockhart wanted for the _Quarterly_, saying, "I cannot
write anything about the author unless I know it can hurt no one
alive"[244] but for the first volume of the _Quarterly_ he reviewed Sir
John Carr's _Caledonian Sketches_ in a way that Sharon Turner seriously
objected to, because it made Sir John seem ridiculous.[245] Some of
Scott's critics would perhaps apply one of the strictures to himself:
"Although Sir John quotes Horace, he has yet to learn that a wise man
should not admire too easily; for he frequently falls into a state of
wonderment at what appears to us neither very new nor very
extraordinary."[246] But if admiration seems to characterize too great a
proportion of Scott's critical work, it is because he usually preferred
to ignore such books as demanded the sarcastic treatment which he
reprehended, but which he felt perfectly capable of applying when he
wished. Speaking of a fulsome biography he once said, "I can no more
sympathize with a mere eulogist than I can with a ranting hero upon the
stage; and it unfortunately happens that some of our disrespect is apt,
rather unjustly, to be transferred to the subject of the panegyric in
the one case, and to poor Cato in the other."[247]

Besides Scott's formal reviews, we find cited as evidence of his extreme
amiability his letters, his journal, and the remarks he