Restoration dramatists. He seems to have had first-hand
knowledge of such men as Ford, Webster, Marston, Brome, Shirley,
Chapman, and Dekker, whom he mentions as being "little known to the
general readers of the present day, even by name."[131] But 1808 was
the very year in which appeared Lamb's _Specimens of English Dramatic
Poets_ and Coleridge's first course of lectures on Shakspere. The old
dramatists were beginning to come to their own, through the sympathetic
appreciation of the Romantic critics. Scott never refers, however, to
the work of Lamb, Coleridge, or Hazlitt[132] in this field and we
conclude that his researches in dramatic literature were the recreation
of a man who realized that his business lay in another direction. But in
preparing the _Dryden_, he doubtless read more widely in Restoration
drama than he would otherwise have done. Throughout his life he
continued to read plays at intervals, as we know from occasional
references in the _Journal_; but after the _Dryden_ appeared we can
point to no time in his career when such reading was his especial
occupation. His familiarity with Elizabethan drama he showed even more
emphatically than by serious critical writings on the subject, in his
fragments from mythical "Old Plays,"[133] in his frequent references to
single plays, and in the substance of some of the novels, particularly
_The Fortunes of Nigel_ and _Woodstock_, which make use of settings,
situations, and characterizations suggested by the drama.[134] Mr. Lang
says of _The Fortunes of Nigel_, "The scenes in Alsatia are a distinct
gain to literature, a pearl rescued from the unread mass of
Shadwell."[135]

His serious critical writings on the subject comprise little else than
his _Essay on the Drama_, which appeared in the supplement to the
_Encyclopaedia Britannica_, published in 1819, and the discussions given
in connection with Dryden's plays.[136] Although the Essay was written
ten years later than the _Dryden_, we have no reason to think that Scott
changed his views or added greatly to his knowledge in the interval, and
using these two sources we may discuss his account of the drama in
general without regard to the particular date at which his opinions were
expressed.

His exposition in the _Essay on the Drama_ rested on the basis furnished
by a historical study of the stage. He did not, of course, pretend to
have formed his own conclusions on all points, and we find him quoting
from variou