s, opened at once a new career of fame and fortune to him,
and a previously unknown field of exploit and popularity to the English
novel.

The extraordinary greatness of Scott--who in everything but pure style,
and the expression of the highest raptures of love, thought, and nature,
ranks with the greatest writers of the world--is not better indicated by
any single fact than by the fact that it is impossible to describe his
novels in any simple formula. He practically created the historical
novel; and, what is more, he elaborated it to such an extent that no
really important additions to his scheme have been made since. But not
all his novels are historical. The two which immediately succeeded
_Waverley_, and which perhaps the best judges consider his best,--_Guy
Mannering_ and _The Antiquary_,--have only the faintest touch of history
about them, and might have none at all without affecting their
excellence; while one of the most powerful of his later books, _St.
Ronan's Well_, is almost absolutely virgin of fact. So also, though his
incomparable delineation of national manners, speech, and character, of
the _cosas de Escocia_ generally, is one of the principal sources of his
interest, _Ivanhoe_, which has perhaps been the most popular of all his
books, _Kenilworth_, which is not far below it in popularity or in
merit, and one or two others, have nothing at all of Scotland in them;
and the altogether admirable romance of _Quentin Durward_, one of his
four or five masterpieces, so little that what there is plays the
smallest part in the success. So yet again, historical novelist as Scott
is, and admirably as he has utilised and revivified history, he is by no
means an extremely accurate historical scholar, and is wont not merely
to play tricks with history to suit his story,--that is probably always
allowable,--but to commit anachronisms which are quite unnecessary and
even a little teasing.

There is no doubt that the single gift underlying all these and other
things--the gift which enabled Scott not merely, as has been said, to
create the historical novel, but to give the novel generally an entirely
new start and direction, to establish its popularity, to clear its
reputation from the smirch of frivolity on the one side and immorality
on the other, to put it in the position occupied at other times or in
other countries by the drama and the sermon, and to make it a rival of
the very newspaper which was being refashione