Yet he cannot be accused, as Poe may be, of constructing a theory that those types of art were greatest which he found himself most skilful in exemplifying.

Scott's nature was of that most efficient kind that enables a man to do such things as he likes to see done.

We cannot argue that he was incapable of attending to minute niceties and on this account chose to emphasize the large qualities of literature.

For notwithstanding that lack of delicacy which characterized his physical senses and which we might therefore conclude would affect his literary discernment, we have among his small poems some that show his power, occasionally at least, to satisfy the most fastidious critic of detail.

Evidently he could write in more than one style, and though the style he used most is undoubtedly that which was most natural to him, it was also that which he thought, on other grounds than the character of his own talents, best worth while.