of his artistic principles.

But though criticism by so great and voluminous a writer is valuable
mainly because of the important relation it bears to his other work, and
because of the authority it derives from this relation, Scott's
scholarly and critical writings are individual enough in quality and
large enough in extent to demand consideration on their own merits. Yet
this part of his achievement has received very little attention from
biographers and critics. Lockhart's book is indeed full of materials,
and contains also some suggestive comment on the facts presented; but as
the passing of time has made an estimation of Scott's power more safe,
students have lost interest in his work as a critic, and recent writers
have devoted little attention to this aspect of the great man of
letters.[1]

The present study is an attempt to show the scope and quality of Scott's
critical writings, and of such works, not exclusively or mainly
critical, as exhibit the range of his scholarship. For it is impossible
to treat his criticism without discussing his scholarship; since,
lightly as he carried it, this was of consequence in itself and in its
influence on all that he did. The materials for analysis are abundant;
and by rearrangement and special study they may be made to contribute
both to the history of criticism and to our comprehension of the power
of a great writer. In considering him from this point of view we are
bound to remember the connection between the different parts of his
vocation. In him, more than in most men of letters, the critic resembled
the creative writer, and though the critical temperament seems to show
itself but rarely in his romances, we find that the characteristic
absence of precise and conscious art is itself in harmony with his
critical creed.

The relation between the different parts of Scott's literary work is
exemplified by the subjects he treated, for as a critic he touched many
portions of the field, which in his capacity of poet and novelist he
occupied in a different way. He was a historical critic no less than a
historical romancer. A larger proportion of his criticism concerns
itself with the eighteenth century, perhaps, than of his fiction,[2] and
he often wrote reviews of contemporary literature, but on the whole the
literature with which he dealt critically was representative of those
periods of time which he chose to portray in novel and poem. This
evidently implies great breadth