It is rather surprising that the subject of Scott's influence on the English vocabulary, a subject which has excited the interest of many students of language, has not heretofore been carefully examined. That such an influence existed became apparent soon after Scott achieved popularity. Francis Jeffrey, in his review of Marmion in the Edinburgh Review of April 1808, remarks: “His genius, seconded by the omnipotence of fashion, has brought chivalry again into temporary favor. Fine ladies and gentlemen now talk indeed of donjons, keeps, tabards, scutcheons, tressures, caps of maintenance, portcullises, wimples, and we know not what besides … ” This faintly petulant tone pervades the early remarks on Scott's contributions to the language. When the Waverley Novels appeared there seems to have been in the reviews considerable displeasure at the abundant intermixture of Lowland Scottish dialect, whence some words now very current have come to us. When The Monastery was published, a word-minded reviewer used one of Scott's innovations to solve to his own satisfaction the mystery of the Author of Waverley: “I believe that the author of ‘The Monastery’ and ‘Waverley’ has hitherto kept himself concealed, although these Works and several others … are attributed … to Sir Walter Scott, an opinion which is strengthened by the liberal employment in them of that feeble expression ‘he undid,‘ which so frequently disgraces the most beautiful passages in the Poems he avows.”
