Men, when they have once got benches, will soon fall into the use of cushions.

They are advancing in the lists of our literature, and they will not be long deficient in the _petite morale_, especially as they have, like ourselves, the rage for travelling."[332] Scott liked George Ticknor,[333] and he called Washington Irving "one of the best and pleasantest acquaintances I have made this many a day."[334] In later life he congratulated himself on having from the first foreseen Irving's success.[335] When we remember also that Scott quotes from Poor Richard,[336] refers to Cotton Mather's _Magnalia_,[337] and speaks of "the American Brown" as one whose novels might be reprinted in England,[338] we ought probably to conclude that his acquaintance with our literature was as comprehensive as could have been expected.
Among continental writers belonging to his period, Goethe was very properly the one for whom Scott had the strongest admiration.

But we find comparatively few references to his reading the great German after the early period of translation.

Throughout Lockhart's _Life of Scott_ it is evident that the biographer had a more thorough acquaintance with Goethe than had Scott, and it seems probable that the younger man influenced the elder in his judgment on _Faust_ and on Goethe's character.

In the Introduction to _Quentin Durward_ we find an interesting comment on Goethe's success in creating a really wicked Mephistopheles, who escapes the noble dignity that Milton and Byron gave to their pictures of Satan.