criticisms or of offering such to any friend who may do me the honour to consult me.  I am convinced that, in general, in removing even errors of a trivial or venial kind, the character of originality is lost, which, upon the whole, may be that which is most valuable in the production.”  This position appears doubly significant when we remember that it was assumed by a man who had only the slightest possible amount of paternal jealousy in regard to his writings.[376]

Scott did not always adhere to this resolution, for he did accept criticism and make alterations, more in compliance with the wishes of James Ballantyne, his friend and printer, than to meet the desires of anyone else.  He considered that Ballantyne represented the ordinary popular taste, and he was ready to make some sacrifice of his own judgment in order to satisfy his public.  He sent the conclusion of Rokeby to Ballantyne with this note:  “Dear James,—­I send you this out of deference to opinions so strongly expressed, but still retaining my own, that it spoils one effect without producing another.”

When one of his books was adversely criticised by the public he received the judgment with open mind, and often analyzed it with much acuteness.  The introduction to The Monastery is a good example of frank, though not servile, submission to the decree of public opinion.  That he was deeply impressed with his blunder in managing the White Lady of Avenel may be surmised from the fact that in several later discussions of the effect of supernatural apparitions in novels, he emphasized the necessity of keeping them sufficiently infrequent to preserve an atmosphere of mystery.  Of The Monastery he said:  “I agree with the public in thinking the work not very interesting; but it was written with as much care as the others—­that is, with no care at all."[377] But sometimes he felt inclined to rebel against a popular verdict, as when Norna, in The Pirate, was said to be a mere copy of Meg Merrilies.[378]

In his later days he grew more and more unsure of himself, as he felt compelled to work at his topmost speed.  His Journal for 1829 has the following record in regard to a review he was writing:  “I began to warm in my gear, and am about to awake the whole controversy of Goth and Celt.  I wish I may not make some careless blunders."[379] The criticisms of “J.B.” became more frequent and more irritating to him as he felt a growing inability to achieve precision in details.[380] When Lockhart pointed out some lapses in his style, he wrote in his Journal, “Well!  I will try to remember all this, but after all I write grammar as I speak, to make my meaning known, and a solecism in point of composition, like a Scotch word in speaking, is indifferent to me."[381] Until he felt his powers failing, he was for the most part at once good-natured and independent in his manner of receiving criticism.  Whether or not he agreed with the opinion expressed, he usually thought that what he had once written might best stand, though he might be influenced in later work by the advice that had been given.[382]