SIR WALTER SCOTT AS A CRITIC ***
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[Transcriber's note: All footnotes have been gathered at the end of the text.]
SIR WALTER SCOTT
AS A CRITIC OF LITERATURE
BY
MARGARET BALL, PH.D.
New York THE COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS 1907
Copyright, 1907 BY THE COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS Printed from type November, 1907
PRESS OF THE NEW ERA PRINTING COMPANY LANCASTER, PA.
PREFACE
The lack of any adequate discussion of Scott's critical work is a sufficient reason for the undertaking of this study, the subject of which was suggested to me more than three years ago by Professor Trent of Columbia University. We still use critical essays and monumental editions prepared by the author of the Waverley novels, but the criticism has been so overshadowed by the romances that its importance is scarcely recognized. It is valuable in itself, as well as in the opportunity it offers of considering the relation of the critical to the creative mood, an especially interesting problem when it is presented concretely in the work of a great writer.
No complete bibliography of Scott's writings has been published, and perhaps none is possible in the case of an author who wrote so much anonymously. The present attempt includes some at least of the books and articles commonly left unnoticed, which are chiefly of a critical or scholarly character.
I am glad to record my gratitude to Professor William Allan Neilson, now of Harvard University, and to Professors A.H. Thorndike, W.W. Lawrence, G.P. Krapp, and J.E. Spingarn, of Columbia, for suggestions in connection with various parts of the work. From the beginning Professor Trent has helped me constantly by his advice as well as by the inspiration of his scholarship, and my debt to him is one which can be understood only by the many students who have known his kindness.
MOUNT HOLYOKE COLLEGE, June, 1907.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I.
Introduction: An Outline of Scott's Literary Career 1
CHAPTER II.
Scott's Qualifications as Critic 9
CHAPTER III.
Scott's Work as Student and Editor in the Field of Literary History
1. The Mediaeval Period (a) Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border 17 (b) Studies in the Romances 32 (c) Other Studies in Mediaeval Literature 40
2. The Drama 46
3. The Seventeenth Century: Dryden 59
4. The Eighteenth Century (a) Swift 65 (b) The Somers Tracts 70 (c) The Lives of the Novelists, and Comments on other Eighteenth Century Writers 72
CHAPTER IV.
Scott's Criticism of His Contemporaries 81
CHAPTER V.
Scott as a Critic of His Own Work 108
CHAPTER VI.
Scott's Position as Critic 134
APPENDICES
I. Bibliography of Scott, Annotated 147 II. List of Books Quoted 174 Index 179
A DATED LIST OF SCOTT'S BOOKS, ASIDE FROM THE POEMS AND NOVELS, AND OF THE PRINCIPAL WORKS WHICH HE EDITED (PERIODICAL CRITICISM NOT INCLUDED).
