I think the quarrels of authors eighty or one hundred years ago with their publishers were more frequent than they are in these times.  We read of a long alienation between Scott and Constable, the publisher, who enjoyed a sort of monopoly of the poet’s contributions to literature.  Constable soon after found a great rival in Murray, who was at this time an obscure London bookseller in Fleet Street.  Both these great publishers were remarkable for sagacity, and were bold in their ventures.  The foundation of Constable’s wealth was laid when he was publishing the Edinburgh Review.  In 1809, Murray started the Quarterly Review, its great political rival, with the aid of Scott, who wrote many of its most valuable articles; and William Gilford, satirist and critic, became its first editor.  Growing out of the quarrel between Scott and Constable was the establishment of John Ballantyne & Co. as publishers and booksellers in Edinburgh.

Shortly after the establishment of the Quarterly Review as a Tory journal, Scott began his third great poem, “The Lady of the Lake,” which was published in 1810, in all the majesty of a quarto, at the price of two guineas a copy.  He received for it two thousand guineas.  The first edition of two thousand copies disappeared at once, and was followed the same year by four octavo editions.  In a few months the sale reached twenty thousand copies.  The poem received great commendation both from the Quarterly and the Edinburgh Review.

Mr. Ellis, in his article in the Quarterly, thus wrote: 

“There is nothing in Scott of the severe majesty of Milton, or of the terse composition of Pope, or the elaborate elegance of Campbell, or the flowing and redundant diction of Southey; but there is a medley of bright images, and a diction tinged successively with the careless richness of Shakespeare, the antique simplicity of the old romances, the homeliness of vulgar ballads, and the sentimental glitter of the most modern poetry,—­passing from the borders of the ludicrous to the sublime, alternately minute and energetic, sometimes artificial, and frequently negligent, but always full of spirit and vivacity, abounding in images that are striking at first sight to minds of every contexture, and never expressing a sentiment which it can cost the most ordinary reader any exertion to comprehend.”

This seems to me to be a fair criticism, although the lucidity of Scott’s poetry is not that which is most admired by modern critics.  Fashion in these times delights in what is obscure and difficult to be understood, as if depth and profundity must necessarily be unintelligible to ordinary readers.  In Scott’s time, however, the fashion was different, and the popularity of his poems became almost universal.  However, there are the same fire, vivacity, and brilliant coloring in all three of these masterpieces, as they were regarded two generations ago, reminding one of the witchery of Ariosto; yet there is no great variety