national-characteristic

Updated: August 22, 2026

But it had never been done with really commanding ability on the great scale. In Waverley Scott supplied these two aspects, the historical-romantic and the national-characteristic, with a felicity perhaps all the more unerring in that it seems to have been only partly conscious. The subject of 'the Forty-five' was now fully out of taboo, and yet retained an interest more than antiquarian.

George Saintsbury - Sir Walter Scott: Famous Scots Series