The _Letters of Malachi Malagrowther_ contain some very definite maxims on the subject of political economy, and just as decided are the remarks made in the last of _Paul's Letters_, as well as in the _Life of Napoleon_ and elsewhere, as to how Louis XVIII.

ought to set about the task of calming his distracted kingdom of France.

But however emphatic Scott may be in the comments on government which appear throughout his writings, he was as strongly averse in this matter as in literary affairs to any separation of philosophy from fact: his maxims are always derived from experience.

The following statement of opinion is typical: "In legislating for an ancient people, the question is not, what is the best possible system of law, but what is the best they can bear.

Their habitudes and prejudices must always be respected; and, whenever it is practicable, those prejudices, instead of being destroyed, ought to be taken as the basis of the new regulations."[475] It was Scott's political creed that roused the ire of such men as Hazlitt and Hunt, though they may also have been exasperated at the unprecedented success of poetry which seemed so facile and so superficial to them as Scott's.