imitators of Walter Scott, this mannerism of portraying--not the inner
nature of men and things, but merely the outward garb and appearance--was
carried to still greater extremes. This shallow art and frivolous style
is still [1833] in vogue in Germany as well as in England and
France. . . . In lieu of a knowledge of mankind, our recent novelists
evince a profound acquaintance with clothes." [39]

Elsewhere Heine acknowledges a deeper reason for the popularity of the
Scotch novels. "Their theme . . . is the mighty sorrow for the loss of
national peculiarities swallowed up in the universality of the newer
culture--a sorrow which is now throbbing in the hearts of all peoples.
For national memories lie deeper in the human breast than is generally
thought." But whatever rank may be ultimately assigned to the historical
novel as an art form, Continental critics are at one with the British in
crediting its invention to Scott. "It is an error," says Heine, "not to
recognise Walter Scott as the founder of the so-called historical
romance, and to endeavour to trace it to German imitation." He adds that
Scott was a Protestant, a lawyer and a Scotchman, accustomed to action
and debate, in whose works the aristocratic and democratic elements are
in wholesome balance; "whereas our German romanticists eliminated the
democratic element entirely from their novels, and returned to the ruts
of those crazy romances of knight-errantry that flourished before
Cervantes." [41] "Quel est Fouvrage littéraire," asks Stendhal in
1823,[42] "qui a le plus réussi en France depuis dix ans? Les romans de
Walter Scott. . . . On s'est moqué à Paris pendant vingt ans du roman
historique; l'Académie a prouvé doctement le ridicule de ce genre; nous y
croyions tous, lorsque Walter Scott a paru, son Waverley à la main; et
Balantyne, son libraire vient de mourir millionaire." [43]

Lastly the service of the Waverley Novels to history was an important