



THE 



MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



VOL. XXIII. MAY, 1837. No. 137. 



SIR WALTER SCOTT THE POET AND THE NOVELIST. 



AMONG the different high and illustrious names that distinguish 

 our literary history during the first third of the nineteenth century, 

 none stands higher than that of Sir Walter Scott ; and yet if we 

 analyze the nature of his claims to so glorious a reputation, we shall 

 find some difficulty in establishing them on the ground of just and 

 impartial criticism. None of his works exhibit the traces of pro- 

 found thought or indicate his possession of the ability to investigate 

 the moral and intellectual workings of the human individual or of 

 'society : in fact, he was totally deficient in that mental element 

 which is essential to the philosophical historian, and hence we may 

 account for his wretched failure, when he attempted his ponderous 

 abortion of Napoleon's life. Neither was the more practical portion 

 of his mind that which Dugald Stewart would denominate its 

 * active and moral feelings/ of more solid structure than his specu- 

 lative faculty. His political notions, if indeed he may be said to 

 have had any of his own, were little better than pure prejudices 

 imbibed from his parents and from his own peculiar studies : he 

 had not a mind that could entertain a great question in all its length 

 and breadth, with a view to the good of society in general. He 

 lived among * Barons and mighty men of old,' not in his imagination 

 only ; but he carried their proud bearing and aristocratic contempt 

 of the lower classes into his consideration of present times : indeed 

 he presented, as a political character, the pitiable picture of a resus- 

 citated Cavalier a twaddling laudator temporis acti living in an 

 age of improved feeling for the general good, an age in which 

 things are estimated not by prescriptive right, but by real worth, 

 an age in which talent and industry are as sure a road to wealth and 

 distinction as the headship of a barbarian clan or a barony of a thou- 

 sand years' standing. His political biasses are very obvious and 

 often unpleasantly prominent throughout his writings ; and when- 

 ever an opportunity occurred for the public expression of his feel- 

 ings, we have always found him the zealous advocate of principles, 

 that the good-sense of all judicious men of all parties has long 

 abandoned as untenable and injurious. Au reste, of his vanity we 

 need only the proof furnished by his own favourable review of one of 

 his own books in the Quarterly ; and of his lamentable infirmity of 

 moral purpose, the chain of events that first embarked him in trade 



* Life of Sir Walter Scott, by J. G. ^ockhart. Vol. I. 8vo. R. Cadell: 

 MAY, 1837, 2 G 



