As early as 1792 Scott had written for the Speculative Society an essay on the authenticity of Ossian’s poems, and one of his articles for the Edinburgh Review in 1805 was on the same subject, occasioned by a couple of important documents which supported opposite sides, and which, he said, set the question finally at issue.  This article represents Scott the critic in a typical attitude.  The material was almost altogether furnished in the works which he was surveying.[93] His task was to distinguish the essential points of the problem, to state them plainly, and to weigh the evidence on each side.  In this he shows notable clearness of thought, and also, throughout the rather long treatment of a complicated subject, great lucidity in arrangement and statement.  He was led by this study to change the opinion which he had held in common with most of his countrymen, and to adopt the belief that the poems were essentially creations of Macpherson, with only the names and some parts of the story adopted from the Gaelic.[94] Other references to Ossian occur in Scott’s writings, and it is evident in this case, as in many others, that an investigation of the matter in his early career, whether from original or from secondary sources, gave him material for allusion and comment throughout his life.  For, as we have constant occasion to remark in studying Scott, with a very definite grasp of concrete fact he combined a vigorous generalizing power, and all the parts of his knowledge were actively related.  He seems to have made little preparation for some of his most interesting reviews, but to have utilized in them the store gathered in his mind for other purposes.

Of the northern Teutonic languages Scott had slight knowledge, though he was always interested in the northern literatures.  In a review of the Poems of William Herbert, of which the part most interesting to the reviewer consisted of translations from the Icelandic, Scott says:  “We do not pretend any great knowledge of Norse; but we have so far traced the ‘Runic rhyme’ as to be sensible how much more easy it is to give a just translation of that poetry into English than into Latin.”  In the same review we find him saying, after a slight discussion of the style of Scaldic poetry, “The other translations are generally less interesting than those from the Icelandic.  There is, however, one poem from the Danish, which I transcribe as an instance how very clearly the ancient popular ballad of that country corresponds with our own.”  So we see him drawing from all sources fuel for his favorite fire—­the study of ballads.  Very characteristically also Scott suggests that the author should extend his researches to the popular poetry of Scandinavia, “which we cannot help thinking is the real source of many of the tales of our minstrels."[95] It seems probable that Scott’s acquaintance with northern literatures came partly through his ill-fated amanuensis, Henry Weber.[96] His acknowledgement in the introduction to Sir Tristrem would indicate this, taken together with other references by Scott to Weber’s attainments.