Her novels seemed to grow upon him and he read them often.

It was in connection with her "exquisite touch" that he was moved to reflect, in the words so often quoted from his _Journal_, "The Big Bow-wow strain I can do myself like any now going."[319] Among the expressions of admiration which occur in his review of _Emma_,[320] Scott records a characteristic bit of protest in regard to the tendency of Miss Austen and other novelists to make prudence the guiding motive of all their favorite young women characters, especially in matters of the heart.

He did not like this pushing out of Cupid to make way for so moderate a virtue as prudence; he thought that it is often good for young people to fall in love without regard to worldly considerations.

Scott rated Miss Edgeworth nearly as high as Miss Austen, and hers is the added honor of having inspired the author of _Waverley_ with a desire to emulate her power.[321] With these two novelists he associated Miss Ferrier, as well as the somewhat earlier writer, Fanny Burney.[322] Aside from these women and Henry Mackenzie, perhaps the highest praise that Scott bestowed on any contemporary novelist was given to Cooper.
Here, as in the case of Byron, Scott seemed to ignore the other writer's indebtedness to himself.

He speaks, in the general preface to the Waverley Novels, of "that striking field in which Mr.Cooper has achieved so many triumphs"; and at another time calls him "the justly celebrated American novelist." In his _Journal_ he comments on _The Red Rover_[323] and _The Prairie_;[324] _The Pilot_ he recommends warmly in a letter to Miss Edgeworth.[325] The personal relations between "the Scotch and American lions," as Scott called himself and Cooper, when they met in Parisian society in 1826,[326] had some interesting consequences.