When Scott’s Dryden was reedited and reissued in 1882-93 by Professor Saintsbury, the new editor said:  “It certainly deserves the credit of being one of the best-edited books on a great scale in English, save in one particular,—­the revision of the text."[163] The elaborate historical notes are left untouched, as being “in general thoroughly trustworthy,"[164] though the editor considers them somewhat excessive, especially as sometimes containing illustrative material from perfectly worthless contemporaries.  On the other hand, the “explanation of word and phrase is a little defective."[165]

The most notable quality of the Life of Dryden which composes the first of the eighteen volumes is its breadth of scope.  Scott’s aim may best be given in his own words in the Advertisement:  “The general critical view of Dryden’s works being sketched by Johnson with unequalled felicity, and the incidents of his life accurately discussed and ascertained by Malone, something seemed to remain for him who should consider these literary productions in their succession, as actuated by, and operating upon, the taste of an age where they had so predominant influence; and who might, at the same time, connect the life of Dryden with the history of his publications, without losing sight of the fate and character of the individual."[166]

Errors of judgment appear in places; sometimes they are due to the imperfect scholarship of the time; sometimes they arise from prejudices of Scott’s own.  In the very first chapter we find him condemning Lyly and all writers of “conceited” language—­particularly of course the Metaphysicals—­with a thoroughness that a truly catholic critic ought probably to avoid.  Scott had a constitutional dislike for a labored style, and at the same time a fondness for the direct and straightforward way of looking at things.  So, though he was open to the emotional appeal of a poem like Christabel, he took no pleasure in the devious processes by which the cold intellect has sometimes tried to give fresh interest to familiar words and ideas.  They quite prevented him from seeing the passion in the work of Donne, for example, and he considered all metaphysical poets, in so far as they showed the traits of their class, to be without poetical feeling.

Scott placed Dryden after Shakspere and Milton as third in the list of English writers.  I think he would even have been willing to say that Dryden was the third as a poet.  For greatly as he admired Chaucer, Scott did not feel Chaucer’s full power, and indeed it was only beginning to be possible to read Chaucer with any appreciation of his metrical excellence.  Spenser, of whom he once wrote:  “No author, perhaps, ever possessed and combined in so brilliant a degree the requisite qualities of a poet,"[167] was more of a favorite with Scott than Chaucer.  But at another time he spoke of Drayton as possessing perhaps equal powers of poetry,[168] and he seems to have felt that Spenser becomes tedious