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] Scott disclaimed any special knowledge of stage-craft.

"I know as little about the division of a drama as the spinster about the division of a battle, to use Iago's simile,"[114] he once wrote to a friend.

Yet as a critic he had of course some general ideas about the making of plays, without having worked out any subtle theories on the subject.

In criticising a play by Allan Cunningham, who had asked for his judgment on it, he remarked first that the plot was ill-combined.

"If the mind can be kept upon one unbroken course of interest, the effect even in perusal is more gratifying.