Whatever Scott might think of the worth of public admiration, he frankly attempted to write what would be popular.  He had none of the feeling which has characterized many very interesting men of letters, that the desire for self-expression is the one motive of the author; his personal literary impulse, on the contrary, was always guided by the thought of the audience whom he was addressing.  “No one shall find me rowing against the stream,” says the “Author” in the Introductory Epistle to Nigel.  “I care not who knows it—­I write for general amusement; and though I will never aim at popularity by what I think unworthy means, I will not, on the other hand, be pertinacious in the defence of my own errors against the voice of the public.”  Of his last “apoplectic books,” he wrote, “I am ashamed, for the first time in my life, of the two novels, but since the pensive public have taken them, there is no more to be said but to eat my pudding and to hold my tongue."[389] Early in his career he seems to have felt that he could make a good deal of money by writing, if he should wish.[390] Towards the end he said, “I know that no literary speculation ever succeeded with me but where my own works were concerned; and that, on the other hand, these have rarely failed."[391]

The popularity of his own books was so great that they required a special category.  He seemed to be incapable of ascribing their success to extraordinary excellence, and he settled down to the opinion that it was simply their novelty that the public cared for.  The enthusiastic welcome given him by the Irish when he visited Dublin caused him to say in one of his letters, “Were it not from the chilling recollection that novelty is easily substituted for merit, I should think, like the booby in Steele’s play,[392] that I had been kept back, and that there was something more about me than I had ever been led to suspect."[393]

He assumed that he had studied popular taste enough to have some knowledge of its shiftings, so that he might “set every sail towards the breeze."[394] “I may be mistaken,” he once wrote, “but I do think the tale of Elspat M’Tavish in my bettermost manner, but J.B. roars for chivalry.  He does not quite understand that everything may be overdone in this world, or sufficiently estimate the necessity of novelty.  The Highlanders have been off the field now for some time."[395] His comment on Ivanhoe was still more emphatic.  “Novelty is what this giddy-paced time demands imperiously, and I certainly studies as much as I could to get out of the old beaten track, leaving those who like to keep the road, which I have rutted pretty well."[396]