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.

12 WAVERLEY NOVELS.
was not of Amber or rose-water. But no one shall find me rowing against
the stream. I care not who knows it - I write for general amusement; and,
though I never will aim at popularity by what I think unworthy means, I
will not, on the other hand, be pertinacious in defence of my own errors
against the voice of the public.
Captain. You abandon, then, in the present work — (looking in my
turn, towards the proof-sheet) - the mystic, and the magical, and the whole
system of signs, wonders, and omens? There are no dreams, or presages,~
or obscure allusions to future events?
Author. Not a Cock-lane scratch, my son -not one bounce on the drum
of Tedworth — not so much as the poor tick of a solitary death-watch in
the wainscot. All is clear and above board - a Scots metaphysician might
believe every word of it.
Captain. And the story is, I hope, natural and probable; commencing
strikingly, proceeding naturally, ending happily - like the course of a famed
river, which gushes fiom the mouth of some obscure and romantic grottothen gliding on, never pausing, never precipitating its course, visiting, as it
were, by natural instinct, whatever worthy subjects of interest are presented
by the country through which it passes-widening and deepening in interest
as it flows on; and at length arriving at the final catastrophe as at some
mighty haven, where ships of all kind strike sail and yard?
Author. Hey! hey! what the deuce is all this? Why,'tis Ercles' vein,
and it would require some one much more like Hercules than I, to produce
a story which should gush, and glide, and never pause, and visit, and widen,
and deepen, and all the rest on't. I shall be chin-deep in the grave, man,
before I had done with my task; and, in the meanwhile, all the quirks and
quiddities which I might have devised for my reader's amusement, would
lie rotting in my gizzard, like Sancho's suppressed witticisms, when he was
under his master's displeasure.-There never was a novel written on this
plan while the world stood.
Captain. Pardon me- Tom Jones.
Author. True, and perhaps Amelia also. Fielding had high notions of
the dignity of an art which he may be considered as having founded. I-e
challenges a comparison between the Novel and the Epic. Smollett, Le
Sage, and others, emancipating themselves from the strictness of the rules
he has laid down, have written rather a history of the miscellaneous adventures which befall an individual in the course of life, than the plot of a regular and connected epopeia, where every step brings us a point nearer to
the final catastrophe. These great masters have been satisfied if they
amused the reader upon the road; though the conclusion only arrived because the tale must have an end —just as the traveller alights at the inn,
because it is evening.
Captain. A very commodious mode of travelling, for the author at least.
In short, sir, you are of opinion with Bayes —"What the devil does the plot
signify, except to bring in fine things?"
Author. Grant that I were so, and that I should write with sense and
spirit a few scenes, unlaboured and loosely put together, but which had
sufficient interest in them to amuse in one corner the pain of body; in
another, to relieve anxiety of mind; in a third place, to unwrinkle a brow
bent with the furrows of daily toil; in another, to fill the place of.bad
thoughts, or to suggest better; in yet another, to induce an idler to study
the history of his country; in all save where the perusal interrupted the
discharge of serious duties, to furnish harmless amusement,-might not the
author of such a work, however inartificially executed, plead for his errors
and negligences the excuse of the slave, who, about to be punished for ha.v
ing spread the false report of a victory, saved himself by exclaiming-" Am
I to blame, 0 Athenians, who have given you one happy day?"