The fact that Scott included modern imitations of the ballad in his book is another indication that his attitude was like that of his predecessors.[66] Doubtless these helped the Minstrelsy to sell, but a more modern taste would choose to put them in a place by themselves, not in a collection of old ballads.  An essay on Imitations of the Ancient Ballad was written, as were the Remarks on Popular Poetry, for the 1833 edition.  It is chiefly interesting for its autobiographical matter, though it also contains criticisms of Burns and other writers of ballad poetry—­“a species of literary labour which the author has himself pursued with some success."[67] Scott’s statement that the ballad style was very popular at the time he began to write, and that he followed the prevailing fashion, was one of many examples of his modesty, taken in connection with the remark in another part of the essay to the effect that this style “had much to recommend it, especially as it presented considerable facilities to those who wished at as little exertion or trouble as possible to attain for themselves a certain degree of literary reputation.”  To complete the comparison, however, we need an observation found in one of Scott’s reviews, on the spurious ballad poetry, full of false sentiment, sometimes written in the eighteenth century.  “It is the very last refuge of those who can do nothing better in the shape of verse; and a man of genius should disdain to invade the province of these dawdling rhymers."[68]

Scott’s criticism of ballad style probably suffered from his interest in modern imitations of ballads.  Perhaps also the real quality of ancient popular poetry was a little obscured for him by his belief that it was written by professional or semi-professional poets.  If he wrote Kinmont Willie, he succeeded in catching the right tone better than anyone since him has been able to do, but even in this poem there are turns of phrase that remind one of the Lay of the Last Minstrel rather than of the true folk-song.[69] After his first attempts at versifying he received from William Taylor, of Norwich, who had made an earlier translation of Buerger’s Lenore, a letter of hearty praise intermingled with very sensible remarks about the tendency in some parts of Scott’s Chase toward too great elaboration.[70] Scott’s answer was as follows:  “I do not ... think quite so severely of the Darwinian style, as to deem it utterly inconsistent with the ballad, which, at least to judge from the examples left us by antiquity, admits in some cases of a considerable degree of decoration.  Still, however, I do most sincerely agree with you, that this may be very easily overdone, and I am far from asserting that this may not be in some degree my own case; but there is scarcely so nice a line to distinguish, as that which divides true simplicity from flatness and Sternholdianism (if I may be allowed to coin the word), and therefore it is