One of his contemporaries spoke of Scott's own works as throwing "a literary splendour over his native city";[28] and George Ticknor said of him, "He is indeed the lord of the ascendant now in Edinburgh, and well deserves to be, for I look upon him to be quite as remarkable in intercourse and conversation, as he is in any of his writings, even in his novels."[29] But he could hardly be expected to perceive the luster surrounding his own personality, and this one instance of regret for former days counts little against the abundant evidence that he thought the world was improving.

Yet of all his contemporaries he was probably the one who looked back at the past with the greatest interest.

The impression made by the author of _Waverley_ upon the mind of a young enthusiast of his own time is too delightful to pass over without quotation.

"He has no eccentric sympathies or antipathies"; wrote J.L.Adolphus, "no maudlin philanthropy or impertinent cynicism; no nondescript hobby-horse; and with all his matchless energy and originality of mind, he is content to admire popular books, and enjoy popular pleasures; to cherish those opinions which experience has sanctioned; to reverence those institutions which antiquity has hallowed; and to enjoy, admire, cherish, and reverence all these with the same plainness, simplicity, and sincerity as our ancestors did of old."[30] By temperament, then, Scott was enthusiastic over the past and cheerful in regard to his own day; he was imaginative, practical, genial; and these traits must be taken into account in judging his critical writings.

These and other qualities may be deduced from the most superficial study of his creative work.