made to friends
in moments of enthusiasm. These do indeed contain some sweeping
statements, but in almost every case one can see some reason, other than
the desire to be obliging, why he made them. He was not double-faced.
One of the nearest approaches to it seems to have been in the case of
Miss Seward's poetry, for which he wrote such an introduction as hardly
prepares the reader for the remark he made to Miss Baillie, that most of
it was "absolutely execrable." His comment in the edition of the
poems--the publication of which Miss Seward really forced upon him as a
dying request--is sedulously kind, and in _Waverley_ he quotes from her
a couple of lines which he calls "beautiful." But the essay is most
carefully guarded, and throughout it the editor implies that the woman
was more admirable than the poetry. Personally, indeed, he seems to have
liked and admired her.[248]

The catalogue of Scott's contemporaries is so full of important names
that his genius for the enjoyment of other men's work had a wide
opportunity to display itself without becoming absurd. An argument early
used to prove that Scott was the author of _Waverley_ was the frequency
of quotation in the novels from all living poets except Scott himself,
and he felt constrained to throw in a reference or two to his own poetry
in order to weaken the force of the evidence.[249] The reader is
irresistibly reminded of the following description, given by Lockhart in
a letter to his wife, of a morning walk taken by Wordsworth and Scott in
company: "The Unknown was continually quoting Wordsworth's Poetry and
Wordsworth ditto, but the great Laker never uttered one syllable by
which it might have been intimated to a stranger that your Papa had ever
written a line either of verse or prose since he was born."[250]

Scott's opinions in regard to his fellow craftsmen may best be given
largely in his own words--words which cannot fail to be interesting,
however little evidence they show of any attempt to make them quotable.

In considering Scott's estimation of his contemporaries it is
chronologically proper to mention Burns first. As a boy of fifteen Scott
met Burns, an event which filled him with the suitable amount of awe. He
was most favorably impressed with the poet's appearance and with
everything in his manner. The boy thought, however, that "Burns'
acquaintance with English poetry was rather limited, and also, that
having twenty times the abilities of Allan R