Scott’s fondness for the drama and his acquaintance with actors—­His ideas about plot structure—­His own dramatic experiments—­His opinion of the theaters of his day—­His knowledge of English dramatic literature—­Familiarity with Elizabethan plays shown in his novels—­His Essay on the Drama—­Ancient drama—­French drama—­Dramatic unities—­German drama—­Elizabethan drama—­Shakspere—­Ben Jonson—­Dryden and other Restoration dramatists—­Morality of theater-going—­Character of Scott’s interest in the drama.

Like most of his characteristics, Scott’s taste for the theater was exhibited in his childhood.  We find him reverting, in a review written in 1826,[108] to his rapturous emotions on the occasion of seeing his first play; and in the private theatricals which he and his brothers and sister performed in the family dining-room he was always the manager.  In 1810 he was active in helping to bring out in Edinburgh the Family Legend of his friend Joanna Baillie.[109] One of the actors on that occasion was Daniel Terry,[110] who became an intimate friend of Scott’s.  For Terry Scott wrote The Doom of Devorgoil, but the piece was not found suitable for presentation.  Several of the novels were more successfully dramatized by the same friend, so that we find the “Author” humorously complaining in the “Introductory Epistle” to The Fortunes of Nigel, “I believe my muse would be Terryfied into treading the stage even if I should write a sermon.”  Among Scott’s friends were several other actors, particularly Mrs. Siddons and her brother John Kemble, and the comedian Charles Mathews.  In Scott’s review of Kelly’s Reminiscences and the Life of Kemble we find recorded many of the discriminations he was fond of making in regard to the talents of particular actors.

In his childhood Scott felt well qualified to take the part of Richard III., for he considered that his limp “would do well enough to represent the hump."[111] After a similar fashion we find him commenting on the improbabilities of the tragedy of Douglas:  “But the spectator should, and indeed must, make considerable allowances if he expects to receive pleasure from the drama.  He must get his mind, according to Tony Lumpkin’s phrase, into ’a concatenation accordingly,’[112] since he cannot reasonably expect that scenes of deep and complicated interest shall be placed before him, in close succession, without some force being put upon ordinary probability; and the question is not, how far you have sacrificed your judgment in order to accommodate the fiction, but rather, what is the degree of delight you have received in return."[113]