The monastery; The abbot.

ANSWER TO THE INTRODUCTORY EPISTLE. 83
strike your name from the half-pay establishment, nay, actually put you
to death, without being answerable to any one. These are plain words tc
a gentleman who has served during the whole war; but, I am aware, you
will take nothing amiss at my hands.
And now, my good sir, let us address ourselves to our task, and arrange,
as we best can, the manuscript of your Benedictine, so as to suit the taste
of this critical age. You will find I have made very liberal use of his permission, to alter whatever seemed too favourable to the Church of Rome,
which I abominate, were it but for her fasts and penances.
Our reader is doubtless impatient, and we must own, with John Bunyan,
We have too long detain'd him in the porch,
And kept him from the sunshine with a torch.
Adieu, therefore, my dear Captain-remember me respectfully to the
parson, the schoolmaster, and the bailie, and all friends of the happy club
in the village of Kennaquhair. I have never seen, and never shall see, one
of their faces; and notwithstanding, I believe that as yet I am better ncquainted with them than any other man who lives. -I shall soon introduce
you to my jocund friend, Mr. John Ballantyne of Trinity Grove, whom you
will find warm from his match at single-stick with a brother Publisher.*
Peace to their differences! It is a wrathful trade, and the irritabile genus
comprehends the bookselling as well as the book-writing species. Once
more adieu!
TIE AUTHOR OF WAVERLEY.
* In consequence of the pseudo Tales of My Landlord printed in London, as already mentioned, the ]ato
Mr. John Bnll:lnttve, the author's publisher, had a controversy with the interloping bibliopolist. each insistimg
that his Jedediah Cleishbotham was the real Simon Pure.
VOL. YV