see that some of his later reviews discussed matters that were not less
dear to his heart because they were not literary. The articles on
fishing, on ornamental gardening, on planting waste lands, remind us of
the observation he once made, that his oaks would outlast his laurels.

By this time the "Author of Waverley" was no longer the "unknown." His
business complications compelled him to give his name to the novels, and
with the loss of a certain kind of privacy he gained the freedom of
which later he made such fortunate use in annotating his own works. From
the beginning of 1828 until the end of his life in 1832, Scott was
engaged, in the intervals of other occupations, in writing these
introductions and notes for his novels, for an edition which he always
called the _Opus Magnum_. This was a pleasant task, charmingly done.
Indeed we may call it the last of those great editorial labors by which
Scott's fame might live unsupported by anything else. First came the
_Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border_, then the editions of Dryden and
Swift. Next we may count the _Lives of the Novelists_, even in the
fragmentary state in which the failure of the _Novelists' Library_ left
them; and finally the _Opus Magnum_. When, in addition, we remember the
mass of his critical work written for periodicals, and the number of
minor volumes he edited, it becomes evident that a study of Scott which
disregards this part of his work can present only a one-sided view of
his achievement. And the qualities of his abundant criticism, especially
its large fresh sanity, seem to make it worthy of closer analysis than
it usually receives, not only because it helps to reveal Scott's genius,
but also on account of the historical and ethical importance which
always attaches to the ideals, literary and other, of a noble man and a
great writer.