If Stendhal proceeds to remark in a footnote that 'l'homme lui-meme est peu digne d'enthousiasme,' it is pleasant to remember that Lord Byron wrote to M. Henri Beyle to correct his low opinion of the character of Scott. This is by the way, though not, I hope, an irrelevant remark. For Scott is best revealed in his friendships; and the mutual regard of Scott and Byron is as pleasant to think of as the friendship between Scott and Wordsworth. As to the truth of Stendhal's opinion about the vogue of Scott's novels and his place as chief of the romantics, there is no end to the list of witnesses who might be summoned. Perhaps it may be enough to remember how the young Balzac was carried away by the novels as they came fresh from the translator, almost immediately after their first appearance at home. One distinguishes easily enough, at home in Scotland, between the novels, or the passages in the novels, that are idiomatic, native, homegrown, intended for his own people, and the novels not so limited, the romances of English or foreign history--_Ivanhoe_, _Kenilworth_, _Quentin Durward_. But as a matter of fact these latter, though possibly easier to understand and better suited to the general public, were not invariably preferred. The novels were 'the Scotch novels.' Although Thackeray, when he praises Scott, takes most of his examples from the less characteristic, what we may call the English group, on the other hand, Hazlitt dwells most willingly on the Scotch novels, though he did not like Scotsmen, and shared some of the prejudice of Stendhal--'my friend Mr. Beyle,' as he calls him in one place--with regard to Scott himself. And Balzac has no invidious preferences: he recommends an English romance, _Kenilworth_, to his sister, and he also remembers David Deans, a person most intensely and peculiarly Scots. One may distinguish the Scotch novels, which only their author could have written, from novels like _Peveril of the Peak_ or _Anne of Geierstein_, which may be thought to resemble rather too closely the imitations of Scott, the ordinary historical novel as it was written by Scott's successors. But though the formula of the conventional historical novel may have been drawn from the less idiomatic group, it was not this that chiefly made Scott's reputation. His fame and influence were achieved through the whole mass of his immense and varied work; and the Scots dialect and humours, which make so large a part of his resources when he is putting out all his power, though they have their difficulties for readers outside of Scotland, were no real hindrances in the way of the Scotch novels: Dandie Dinmont and Bailie Nicol Jarvie, Cuddie Headrigg and Andrew Fairservice were not ignored or forgotten, even where _Ivanhoe_ or _The Talisman_ might have the preference as being more conformable to the general mind of novel readers.