It should also, he believed, warn the world against books that were foolish, or pernicious, intellectually or morally; but unless there were good reason for issuing such warnings the bad books should be ignored and the good treated sympathetically, not without such discrimination as should distinguish between the better and the worse in them, but with emphasis on the better.

His literary creed, though not formulated into a system, was conscious and fairly definite; but it consisted of general principles which never resolved themselves into intricate subtleties requiring great space for their development.
Scott could not think in that way, and he felt convinced that such thinking was useless and worse than useless.

A magazine-writer of his own period who said of him,--"The author of _Waverley_, we apprehend, has neither the patience nor the disposition requisite for writing philosophically upon any subject,"[469] was mistaken, for much of Scott's criticism, without making any pretensions, is really philosophical.

But any fine-drawn analysis seemed to him to serve the vanity of the critic rather than the need of the public; and he despised that arrogance in the critic which leads him to assume to direct literary taste.
Historical illustration was that kind of editorial work which he found most congenial, and which harmonized best with his critical principles; for when he could bring definite facts to the service of elucidation he felt that he was doing something worth while.

Among all the introductions and annotations that we have from his hand, including those of the _Dryden_ and the _Swift_, this kind of explanation greatly predominates over the more strictly literary comment; in his reviews, also, it is evident that he seized every opportunity for turning from literary to historical discussion.