'It is the difference between _originality_ and the want of it, between writing and transcribing. Almost all the finest scenes and touches, the great master-strokes in Shakespeare, are such as must have belonged to the class of invention, where the secret lay between him and his own heart, and the power exerted is in adding to the given materials and working something out of them: in the author of _Waverley_, not all, but the principal and characteristic beauties are such as may and do belong to the class of compilation--that is, consist in bringing the materials together and leaving them to produce their own effect.... 'No one admires or delights in the Scotch Novels more than I do, but at the same time, when I hear it asserted that his mind is of the same class with Shakespeare, or that he imitates nature in the same way, I confess I cannot assent to it. No two things appear to me more different. Sir Walter is an imitator of nature and nothing more; but I think Shakespeare is infinitely more than this.... Sir Walter's mind is full of information, but the "_o'er informing power_" is not there. Shakespeare's spirit, like fire, shines through him; Sir Walter's, like a stream, reflects surrounding objects.' I may not at this time quote much more of Hazlitt's criticism, but the point of it would be misunderstood if it were construed as depreciation of Scott. What may be considered merely memory in contrast to Shakespeare's imagination is regarded by Hazlitt as a limitless source of visionary life when compared with the ideas of self-centred authors like Byron. This is what Hazlitt says in another essay of the same series:-- 'Scott "does not 'spin his brains' but something much better." He "has got hold of another clue--that of Nature and history--and long may he spin it, 'even to the crack of doom!'" Scott's success lies in not thinking of himself. "And then again the catch that blind Willie and his wife and the boy sing in the hollow of the heath--there is more mirth and heart's ease in it than in all Lord Byron's _Don Juan_ or Mr. Moore's _Lyrics_. And why? Because the author is thinking of beggars and a beggar's brat, and not of himself, while he writes it. He looks at Nature, sees it, hears it, feels it, and believes that it exists before it is printed, hotpressed, and labelled on the back _By the Author of 'Waverley.'_ He does not fancy, nor would he for one moment have it supposed, that his name and fame compose all that is worth a moment's consideration in the universe. This is the great secret of his writings--a perfect indifference to self."'