But granting
this, I do not agree with his condemnation of all his own colourless
heroes. However much they differed in nature from Scott himself, the
even balance of their reason against their sympathies is certainly
well conceived, is in itself natural, and is an admirable expedient
for effecting that which was probably its real use to Scott,--the
affording an opportunity for the delineation of all the pros and cons
of the case, so that the characters on both sides of the struggle
should be properly understood. Scott's imagination was clearly far
wider--was far more permeated with the fixed air of sound
judgment--than his practical impulses. He needed a machinery for
displaying his insight into both sides of a public quarrel, and his
colourless heroes gave him the instrument he needed. Both in Morton's
case (in _Old Mortality_), and in Waverley's, the hesitation is
certainly well described. Indeed in relation to the controversy
between Covenanters and Royalists, while his political and martial
prepossessions went with Claverhouse, his reason and educated moral
feeling certainly were clearly identified with Morton.
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