Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature

nergy. The last of the long poems was published in 1815, about the same time with Guy Mannering, the second novel, and after that the novels continued to appear with that rapidity which constitutes one of the chief facts of Scott's literary career. For a few years after this period he did comparatively little in the way of editorial work, but his odd moments were occupied in writing about history, travels, and antiquities.[6]

In 1820 Scott wrote the Lives of the Novelists, which appeared the next year in Ballantyne's Novelists' Library. By this time he had begun, with Ivanhoe, to strike out from the Scottish field in which all his first novels had been placed. The martial pomp prominent in this novel reflects the eager interest with which he was at that time following his son's opening career in the army; just as Marmion, written by the young quartermaster of the Edinburgh Light Horse, also expresses the military ardor which was so natural to Scott, and whic