Mere bulk, however, it may be said, is nothing—indeed it is too often, in work of which posterity is so shy as it is of criticism, a positive misfortune and drawback. What makes the small account taken of Scott as a critic surprising and regrettable is the goodness as well as the bulk of his critical production. Perhaps it may be urged with some justice, in defence of this popular neglect, that his want of attention to style is particularly unfortunate here. He is notoriously a rather “incorrect” writer; and he does not, as many so-called incorrect writers have known how to do, supply the want of academic propriety by irregular brilliances of any kind. [Sidenote: _Injustice of this._] Another charge sometimes brought against him—that he is too good-natured and too indiscriminate in praise—will less hold water;[524] and indeed is much too closely connected with the popular notion of the critic as a sort of “nigger”-overseer, whose business is to walk about and distribute lashes—a notion which cannot be too often reprobated. As a private critic Scott _was_ sometimes too easy-going, but by no means always or often in his professional utterances. And he had what are certainly two of the greatest requirements of the critic, reading and sanity. Sometimes some amiable prepossession (such as the narrower patriotism in his relative estimate of Fielding and Smollett) leads him a little astray; but this is very seldom—far seldomer than is the rule with critics of anything like his range. Here, as elsewhere, he does not much affect the larger and deeper and higher generalisations; but here, as elsewhere, his power of reaching these has been considerably underrated. And the distaste itself saves him—and his readers—from the hasty and floundering failures of those who aim more ambitiously at width, depth, and height. In the methodic grasp and orderly exposition of large and complicated subjects (as in the _Romance_[525] and _Drama_ examples) he leaves nothing to desire. Sometimes, in his regular reviews, he condescends too much to the practice of making the review a mere abstract of the book; but I have known readers who complain bitterly of any other mode of proceeding.