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.