[Footnote 121:  Introductory epistle to Nigel.]

  [Footnote 122:  Lockhart, Vol.  V, p. 414.]

  [Footnote 123:  Fitzgerald’s New History of the English Stage, Vol. 
  II, p. 404.]

  [Footnote 124:  Dramatic Essays, Hazlitt’s Works, Vol.  VIII, p.
  422.]

  [Footnote 125:  Lockhart, Vol.  III. p. 176.]

  [Footnote 126:  Ibid., Vol.  III. p. 265.]

  [Footnote 127:  Ibid., Vol.  III. p. 332.]

  [Footnote 128:  Essay on the Drama.]

[Footnote 129:  In 1808 he wrote to a friend:  “We have Miss Baillie here at present, who is certainly the best dramatic writer whom Britain has produced since the days of Shakspeare and Massinger.” (Fam.  Let., Vol.  I. p. 99.) But Wilson also put Joanna Baillie next to Shakspere, and quite seriously.  The article in the Dictionary of National Biography, on Joanna Baillie says that when the first volume of Plays on the Passions was published anonymously in 1798, Walter Scott was at first suspected of being the author.  But as Scott had done nothing to give him a literary reputation in 1798, the assertion is incredible.  It seems to be based on the following very inexact statement in Chambers’s Biographical Dictionary of Eminent Scotsmen. (Vol.  V, Art. Joanna Baillie.) “Rich though the period was in poetry, this work made a great impression, and a new edition of it was soon required.  The writer was sought for among the most gifted personages of the day, and the illustrious Scott, with others then equally appreciated, was suspected as the author.”]

  [Footnote 130:  Lockhart, Vol.  I, p. 380.]

[Footnote 131:  Life of Dryden, ch.  I. In Guy Mannering and The Antiquary, the first two novels in which Scott habitually used mottoes to head his chapters, most of the selections are from plays.  Eighteen plays of Shakspere are represented by twenty-nine quotations.  Other mottoes are from The Merry Devil of Edmonton, from Jonson, from Fletcher (The Little French Lawyer, Women Pleased, The Fair Maid of the Inn, The Beggar’s Bush), from Brome, Dekker, Middleton and Rowley, Cartwright, Otway, Southerne, The Beggar’s Opera, Walpole’s Mysterious Mother, The Critic, Chrononhotonthologos, Joanna Baillie.  For the latter part of The Antiquary many of the mottoes were composed by Scott himself. Kenilworth presents a similar list, with some variations:  Jonson’s Masque of Owls was used, more than one play by Beaumont and Fletcher, Waldron’s Virgin Queen, Wallenstein, and Douglas.  In St. Ronan’s Well there is a larger proportion of non-dramatic mottoes, as in most of the later novels, but we find represented nine of Shakspere’s plays and one of Beaumont