"Since one line has failed, we must just stick to something else," he remarked, calmly.[397] This was when the small sales of _The Lord of the Isles_ as compared with the earlier poems warned Scott and his publisher in a very tangible way that the field had been captured by Byron.

At this time _Waverley_ was in the market and _Guy Mannering_ was in process of composition.

Though it was to his poetry that he chose to give his name, Scott had little reason to feel forlorn, as the sale of the novels from the very beginning was a pretty effective consolation for any possible hurt to his vanity.

He could have owned them as his at any moment, had he chosen to do so.

He did not read criticisms of his books, but was satisfied, as one of his friends observed, "to accept the intense avidity with which his novels are read, the enormous and continued sale of his works, as a sufficient commendation of them."[398] In the case of Byron, as always when the public approved the works of one of his brother authors, he considered the popular judgment right.
Scott did not altogether stop writing poetry, however, as is sometimes supposed.