[10] See vol. i., p. 390.

[11] See the General Preface to the Waverley Novels for some remarks on “Queenhoo Hall” which Strutt began and Scott completed.

[12] Cf. vol. i., p. 344.

[13] “I am therefore descended from that ancient chieftain whose name I have made to ring in many a ditty, and from his fair dame, the Flower of Yarrow—­no bad genealogy for a Border minstrel.”

[14] “He neither cared for painting nor sculpture, and was totally incapable of forming a judgment about them.  He had some confused love of Gothic architecture because it was dark, picturesque, old and like nature; but could not tell the worst from the best, and built for himself probably the most incongruous and ugly pile that gentlemanly modernism ever devised.”—­Ruskin.  “Modern Painters,” vol. iii., p. 271.

[15] See vol. i., p. 200.

[16] The Abbey of Tintern was irrelevant to Wordsworth.—­Herford.  “The Age of Wordsworth,” Int., p. xx.

[17] “Dear Sir Walter Scott and myself were exact, but harmonious, opposites in this:—­that every old ruin, hill, river or tree called up in his mind a host of historical or biographical associations; . . . whereas, for myself . . .  I believe I should walk over the plain of Marathon without taking more interest in it than in any other plain of similar features.”—­Coleridge, “Table Talk,” August 4, 1833.

[18] See the delightful anecdote preserved by Carlyle about the little Blenheim cocker who hated the “genus acrid-quack” and formed an immediate attachment to Sir Walter.  Wordsworth was far from being an acrid quack, or even a solemn prig—­another genus hated of dogs—­but there was something a little unsympathetic in his personality.  The dalesmen liked poor Hartley Coleridge better.

[19] Scott could scarcely have forborne to introduce the figure of the Queen of Scots, to insure whose marriage with Norfolk was one of the objects of the rising.

[20] For a full review of “The White Doe” the reader should consult Principal Shairp’s “Aspects of Poetry,” 1881.

[21] Scott averred that Wordsworth offended public taste on system.

[22] This is incomparable, not only as a masterpiece of romantic narrative, but for the spirited and natural device by which the hero is conducted to his adventure.  R. L. Stevenson and other critics have been rather hard upon Scott’s defects as an artist.  He was indeed no stylist:  least of all a precieux.  There are no close-set mosaics in his somewhat slip-shod prose, and he did not seek for the right word “with moroseness,” like Landor.  But, in his large fashion, he was skilful in inventing impressive effects.  Another instance is the solitary trumpet that breathed its “note of defiance” in the lists of Ashby-de-la-Zouch, which has the genuine melodramatic thrill—­like the horn of Hernani or the bell that tolls in “Venice Preserved.”

[23] See the “Hunting Song” in his continuation of “Queenhoo Hall”—­