ment; but he is inferior in strength of soar, in eloquence, intensity, and eagle genius. It must be remembered, too, that Byron had performed all these marvellous things, and was dead, at an age when Scott had only written the first of his larger poems. Still (setting Shakspeare, Homer, and, in a very different style of genius, Milton aside) Scott, as a whole, has been the foremost of authors. No one has so combined quantity with quality, health with force, simplicity with grandeur, catholicity of aim with ease and naturalness of execution; business-like directness and keen common sense with enthusiasm ; a pure morality, and sound religious feeling, with liberal impulses, a generous heart, a genial temperament, and a bold and unbounded imagination. |