The Waverley novels, by Sir Walter Scott, complete in 12 vol., printed from the latest English ed., embracing the author's last corrections, prefaces & notes.

-OLD MORTALITY. 373
tht I might be enabled to present an unbiassedt picture of the manners of
that unhappy period, and at the same time to do justice to the merits of both
parties. But I have been enabled to qualify the narratives of Old Mortality
and his Cameronian friends, by the reports of more than one descendant of
ancient and honourable faminilies, who, thelllselves decayed into the humble
vale of life, yet look proudly back on the period when their ancestors fought
and fell in behalf of the exiled house of Stuart. I may even boast right
reverend authority on the same score; for more than one nonjuring bishop,
whose authority and income were upon as apostolical a scale as the greatest
abominator of Episeopacy could well desire, having deigned, while partaking
of the humble cheer of the Wallace Inn, to furnish me with information
corrective of the facts which I learned from others. There are also here and
there a laird or two, who, though they shrug their shoulders, profess no
great shame in their fathers having served in the persecuting squadrons of
Earlshall and Claverhouse. Fromn the gamekeepers of these gentlemen, an
office the most apt of any other to become hereditary in such families, I have
also contrived to collect much valuable information.
" Upon the whole, I can hardly fear, that at this time, in describing the
operation which their opposite principles produced upon the good and bad
men of both parties, I can be suspected of meaning insult or injustice to
either. If recollection of former injuries, extra-loyalty, and contempt and
hatred of their adversaries, produced rigour and tyranny in the one party,
it will hardly be denied, on the other hand, that if the zeal for God's house
did not eat up the conventiclers, it devoured at least, to imitate tbe phrase
of Dryden, no small portion of their loyalty, sober sense, and good breeding. We may safely hope, that the souls of the brave and sincere on either
side have long, looked downe with surprise and pity upon the ill-appreciated
motives which caused their mutual hatred and hostility while in thlis valley
of darkness, blood, and tears. Peace to their memory! Let us think of
thein as the heroine of our only Scottish tragedy entreats her lord to think
of her departed sire
O rake not up the ashes of our fathers!
Implacable resentmnelt was their crime,
And grievous has the expiation been."
Summon an hundred horse, by break of day,
To wait our pleasure at thie castle gates.
DOUGLAS.
UNDER the reign of the last Stuarts, there was an anxious wish on the
part of Government to counteract, by every means in their power, the strict
or puritanical spirit which had been the chief characteristic of the republican government, and to revive those feudal institutions which united the
vassal to the liege lord, and both to the Crown. Frequent musters and assemblies of the people, both for military exercise and for sports and pastimes, were appointed by authority. The interference, in the latter case,
was impolitic, to say the least; for, as usual on such occasions, the consciences which were at first only scrupulous, became confirmed in their
opinions, instead of giving way to the terrors of authority; and the youth
of both sexes, to whom the pipe and tabor in England, or the bagpipe in
Scotland, would have been in themselves an irresistible temptation, were
enabled to set them at defiance, from the proud consciousness that they were
2 G