" Though this criticism has not the advantage of being new, it is
true; and when we have added that Scott's novels are the novels of the
poet who, next to Shakspeare, knew mankind most widely and well, we have
the secret of his triumph.
For the first time in literature, it was a poet who held the pen of the
romancer in prose. Fielding, Richardson, De Foe, Miss Rurnev, were none
of them made by the gods poetical. Scott himself, with his habitual
generosity, would have hailed his own predecessor in Mrs. Radcliffe. "The
praise may be claimed for Mrs. Radcliffe of having been the first to
introduce into her prose fictions a beautiful and fanciful tone of
natural description and impressive narrative, which had hitherto been
exclusively applied to poetry. . . . Mrs. Radcliffe has a title to be
considered the first poetess of romantic fiction." When "Guy Mannering"
appeared, Wordsworth sneered at it as a work of the Radcliffe school. The
slight difference produced by the introduction of humour could scarcely
be visible to Wordsworth. But Scott would not have been hurt by his
judgment. He had the literary courage to recognize merit even when
obscured by extravagance, and to applaud that in which people of culture
could find neither excellence nor charm.
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