The Matter of Scotland

In an essay on Sir Walter Scott, Mr. G.M. Young brings into the same paragraph a reference to the historic value of Homeric poetry, and an appreciation of the like quality in Scott’s own verses. It was a discovery of this juxtaposition of the two names, by so learned and judicious an historian as Mr. Young, that gave me courage, at first to review, and then to enlarge, and now to utter in public, a rash statement I had made, not long before, to a few friends, warmly critical of it, in that warm and generous hour before midnight when imagination so often triumphs over fact and sometimes breaks through familiar darkness. There had been some talk of the usual kind about Scott, about his prolixity, his dull meanderings and his duller heroes, and I, not so much defending as stating a fine case for him, had declared he was Scotland’s Homer; and his place in history, I went on to say, was singularly happy because the story of Scotland, before him, was no more than a pre-Homeric tale.