"For princely pomp or churchman's pride!
On this bold brow a lordly tower;
In that soft vale a lady's bower;
On yonder meadow, far away,
The turrets of a cloister grey," etc.

The most romantic scene was not romantic enough for Scott till his
imagination had peopled it with the life of a vanished age.

The literary forms which Scott made peculiarly his own, and in which the
greater part of his creative work was done, are three: the popular
ballad, the metrical romance, and the historical novel in prose. His
point of departure was the ballad.[24] The material amassed in his
Liddesdale "raids"--begun in 1792 and continued for seven successive
years--was given to the world in the "Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border"
(Vols. I. and II. in 1802; Vol. III. in 1803), a collection of ballads
historical, legendary, and romantic, with an abundant apparatus in the
way of notes and introductions, illustrating the history, antiquities,
manners, traditions, and superstitions of the Borderers. Forty-three of
the ballads in the "Minstrelsy" had never been printed before; and of the
remainder the editor gave superior versions, choosing with sureness of
taste the best among variant readings, and with a more intimate knowledge
of local ways and language than any previous ballad-fancier had
commanded. He handled his texts more faithfully than Percy, rarely
substituting lines of his own. "From among a hundred corruptions," says
Lockhart, "he seized, with instinctive tact, the primitive diction and
imagery, and produced strains in which the unbroken energy of
half-civilised ages, their stern and deep passions, their daring
adventures and cruel tragedies, and even their rude wild humour are
reflected with almost the brightness of a Homeric mirror."