his novels, and subscribed "Old Play,"[120] was naturally
used as an argument.[121] Scott's own judgment in the matter was
expressed thus: "Nothing so easy when you are full of an author, as to
write a few lines in his taste and style; the difficulty is to keep it
up. Besides, the greatest success would be but a spiritless imitation,
or, at best, what the Italians call a _centone_ [_sic_] from
Shakspeare."[122] When Elliston became manager of Drury Lane in 1819 he
applied to Scott for plays, but without effect.[123] Scott seems never
to have felt any concern over the fact that the dramatized versions of
his novels were often very poor, but Hazlitt wished that he would "not
leave it to others to mar what he has sketched so admirably as a
ground-work," for he saw no good reason why the author of Waverley could
not write "a first-rate tragedy as well, as so many first-rate
novels."[124]

Scott felt that to write for the stage in his day was a thankless and
almost degrading occupation. "Avowedly I will never write for the stage;
if I do, 'call me horse.'" he said in a letter to Terry.[125] Again in
a letter to Southey: "I do not think the character of the audience in
London is such that one could have the least pleasure in pleasing
them.... On the whole, I would far rather write verses for mine honest
friend Punch and his audience";[126] and to a would-be tragedian he
said: "In the present day there is only one reason which seems to me
adequate for the encountering the plague of trying to please a set of
conceited performers and a very motley audience,--I mean the want of
money."[127] This degraded condition of the London stage Scott thought
to be a consequence of limiting the number of theaters. We can hardly
suppose, however, that he was pessimistic in regard to the written drama
of his day, when he could say of Byron, "There is one who, to judge from
the dramatic sketch he has given us in Manfred, must be considered as a
match for Aeschylus, even in his sublimest moods of horror";[128] or
when he could place Joanna Baillie in the same class with
Shakspere[129].

Scott probably did much reading in the drama in his early life. We know
that by 1804 he had "long since" annotated his copy of Beaumont and
Fletcher sufficiently so that he wished to offer it to Gifford, who,
Scott erroneously understood, was about to edit their dramas.[130] The
edition of Dryden, published in 1808, shows familiarity with Elizabethan
as well as