He could accomplish so much only by disregarding details of form; and that he did so we know from our study of his principles of composition, confirmed by the evidence of the passages from him that have here been quoted.

It is clear, also, that he was not limited by that "horror of the obvious," which, as Mr.Saintsbury says, "bad taste at all times has taken for a virtue."[493] Beyond this we have to fall back for explanation on the unusual qualities of his mind.

An observing friend said of him that, "With a degree of patience and quietude which are seldom combined with much energy, he could get through an incredible extent of literary labour."[494] Every quality which made Scott a great man contributes to the interest and importance of his criticism.

Such a body of criticism, formulated by a large creative genius, would be of special consequence if it served merely as the basis for a study of his other work, a commentary on the principles which underlay his whole literary achievement.

But it would be strange if a man of Scott's intellectual personality could write criticism which was not important in itself, and we can only account for the general neglect of this part of his work by considering how large a place his poems and novels give him in the history of our literature.