And the name was well deserved. The
_Border Minstrelsy_ was more commensurate _in range_ with the genius
of Scott, than even the romantic poems by which it was soon followed,
and which were received with such universal and almost unparalleled
delight. For Scott's _Border Minstrelsy_ gives more than a glimpse of
all his many great powers--his historical industry and knowledge, his
masculine humour, his delight in restoring the vision of the "old,
simple, violent world" of rugged activity and excitement, as well as
that power to kindle men's hearts, as by a trumpet-call, which was the
chief secret of the charm of his own greatest poems. It is much easier
to discern the great novelist of subsequent years in the _Border
Minstrelsy_ than even in _The Lay of the Last Minstrel_, _Marmion_,
and _The Lady of the Lake_ taken together. From those romantic poems
you would never guess that Scott entered more eagerly and heartily
into the common incidents and common cares of every-day human life
than into the most romantic fortunes; from them you would never know
how completely he had mastered the leading features of quite
different periods of our history; from them you would never infer that
you had before you one of the best plodders, as well as one of the
most enthusiastic dreamers, in British literature.
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