.. It is he who has
conferred a new reputation on our national character, and bestowed on
Scotland an imperishable name."
Besides his poetry and novels, he wrote very much of a miscellaneous
character for the reviews, and edited the works of the poets with valuable
introductions and congenial biographies. Most of his fictions are
historical in plot and personages; and those which deal with Scottish
subjects are enriched by those types of character, those descriptions of
manners--national and local--and those peculiarities of language, which
give them additional and more useful historical value. It has been justly
said that, by his masterly handling of historical subjects, he has taught
the later historians how to write, how to give vivid and pictorial effects
to what was before a detail of chronology or a dry schedule of philosophy.
His critical powers may be doubted: he was too kind and genial for a
critic; and in reading contemporary authors seems to have endued their
inferior works with something of his own fancy.
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