A man of Scott’s temperament was little likely to set himself up for a prophet, and probably no literary prophecies of his were in the least influential.  Though he sometimes boasted that he understood the varying currents of popular taste, his experience in the publishing business taught him the fallibility of his impressions when the work of writers other than himself was concerned.  He once wrote,—­“The friends who know me best, and to whose judgment I am myself in the constant habit of trusting, reckon me a very capricious and uncertain judge of poetry; and I have had repeated occasion to observe that I have often failed in anticipating the reception of poetry from the public."[482] But it is beyond the strength of flesh and blood to resist saying things about the future sometimes, and Scott occasionally yielded to the temptation, helped, no doubt, by his amiability.  Southey’s Madoc, however, has not yet assumed that place at the feet of Milton which, as we have seen, he ventured to predict for it.  Yet, if we may trust the memory of one of his friends, Scott foresaw the literary success of two of his greatest contemporaries.  R.P.  Gillies said in his Recollections:  “I remember well how correct Scott’s impressions were of such beginners in the literary world as had not then acquired any fixed character.  Of Lord Byron he had from the first a favourable impression....  Of Wordsworth he always spoke favourably, insisting that he was a true poet, but predicting that it would be long ere his works obtained the praise which they merited from the public."[483] Scott explicitly prided himself on two of his prophecies:  that Washington Irving would make a name for himself, and that Sir Arthur Wellesley would become known as an extraordinary man.

Though Scott’s critical work is comparatively little known, and though it presents no solidly organized front by which the public may be impressed, the opinions of so notable a writer have always had a certain weight.  Mr. Churton Collins thinks Scott’s judgment on Dunbar has led modern editors to indulge in very exaggerated statements concerning the merit of that poet.[484] A heavier charge has been laid at Scott’s door on the score of his edition of the Memoirs of Captain Carleton.  He concluded on very insufficient evidence, says Colonel Parnell, that these memoirs were genuinely historical, published them as such, and by the weight of his opinion falsified “the whole stream of nineteenth-century history bearing on the reign of Queen Anne."[485] Stanhope, Macaulay, and other historians were ready to accept Scott’s judgment without further investigation, it seems; and if the accusation be true we may conclude that his influence as a critic has reached farther than might at first sight appear.  Yet we may be content to follow his lead in general, except in those bits of enthusiasm over his friends which bear witness to a generously optimistic nature rather than to a rigid