Warton's _History of English Poetry_ published in that year. The first edition of the text swarms with errors, according to Koelbing,[81] a recent editor of the romance, and later editions are still very inaccurate.[82] It could hardly be expected that a man with Scott's habits of mind would edit a text accurately. But no one of that period was competent to construct a text that would seem satisfactory now. The study of English philology was not sufficiently developed in that direction, nor did scholars appreciate either the difficulties or the requirements of text-criticism. It is not to be wondered at that Scott failed, in this instance as well as afterwards in the case of the text of Dryden, to give a version that would stand the minute scrutiny of later scholarship. His sympathies were rather with the scholar who opens the store of old poetry to the public, than with him who uses his erudition simply for the benefit of erudite people. The diction of the Middle Ages was interesting to him only as it reflected the customs and emotions of its period. He used the romances as authorities on ancient manners. The _Chronicles_ of Froissart, because they give "a knowledge of mankind,"[83] were almost as much a hobby with him as Thomas the Rhymer, and in this case also he endows characters in his novels with his own fondness for the ancient writer.[84] The fruit of Scott's acquaintance with Froissart appears prominently in his essay on _Chivalry_ and in various introductions to ballads in the _Minstrelsy_, as well as in the novels of chivalry. Scott at one time proposed to publish an edition of Malory, but abandoned the project on learning that Southey had the same thing in mind.[85] The first periodical review Scott ever published was on the subject of the _Amadis de Gaul_, as translated by Southey and by Rose. The article is long and very carefully constructed, and expresses many ideas on the subject of the mediaeval romance in general that reappear again and again, particularly in the essay on _Romance_ written in 1823 for the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_. Among these general ideas that found frequent expression in his critical writings, one which in the light of his creative work becomes particularly interesting to us is his judgment on the distinctions between metrical and prose romances. He always preferred the poems, though he was so interested in the prose stories that he talked about them with much enthusiasm, and it sometimes seems as if he liked best the kind he happened to be analyzing at the moment.