The method is useful but dangerous; in the same essay occurs an amusing example of what philosophy may do when it is given free rein.

Within two pages appear these conflicting statements: "The Metrical Romances, though in some instances sent to the press, were not very fit to be published in this form.

The dull amplifications, which passed well enough in the course of a half-heard recitation, became intolerable when subjected to the eye." "The Metrical Romances in some instances indeed ran to great length, but were much exceeded in that particular by the folios which were written on the same or similar topics by their prose successors.

Probably the latter judiciously reflected that a book which addresses itself only to the eyes may be laid aside when it becomes tiresome to the reader; whereas it may not always have been so easy to stop the minstrel in the full career of his metrical declamation." Flaws like this may be picked in the details of Scott's method, just as we may sometimes find fault with the lapses in his mediaeval scholarship.

We do him no injustice when we say that aside from certain aspects of his work on the ballads and _Sir Tristrem_, his achievement was that of a popularizer of learning.
But if he lacked some of the authority of erudition, he escaped also the induration of pedantry.