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.

320 WAVERLEY N OVELS.
cultivating the society of the fair sex, seems, in avoiding the company of.womankind, rather to imitate the humour of our friend and relation, Master
Jonathan Oldbuck, as I was led to conjecture from a circumstance which
occurred immediately after his entrance.
Having acknowledged his presence with fitting thanks and gratulations,
I proposed to my venerated visiter, as a refreshment best suited to the hour
of the day, to suminmon my cousin and housekeeper, Miss Catharine Whiterose, with the tea-equipage; but he rejected my proposal with disdain,
worthy of the Laird of Monkbarns. "No scandal-broth," he exclaimed;
" no unidea'd woman's chatter for me. Fill the frothed tankard - slice the
fatted rump - I desire no society but yours, and no refreshment but what
the cask and gridiron can supply."
The beefsteak, and toast and tankard, were speedily got ready; and,
whether an apparition or a bodily presentation, my visiter displayed dexterity as a trencherman, w7hich- might have attracted the envy of a hungry
hunter, after a fox-chase of forty miles. Neither did he fail to make some
deep and solemn appeals, not only to the tankard aforesaid, but to two
decanters of London particular Madeira and old Port; the first of which I
had extracted from its ripening place of depositation, within reach of the
genial warmth of the oven; the other, from a deep crypt in mine own ancient
cellar, which whilom may have held the vintages of the victors of the world,
the arch being composed of Roman brick. I could not help admiring and
congratulating the old gentleman upon the vigorous appetite which he displayed for the genial cheer of old England. " Sir," was his reply, " I must
eat as an Englishman, to qualify myself for taking my place at one of the
most select companies of right English spirits, which ever girdled in, and
hewed asunder, a mountainous sirloin, and a generous plum-pudding."
I inquired, but with all deference and modesty, whither he was bound,
and to what distinguished Society he applied a description so general. I
shall proceed, in humble imitation of your example, to give the subsequent
dialogue in a dramatic form, unless when description becomes necessary.
Author of TYaverley. To whom should I apply such a description, save
to the only Society to whom it can be thoroughly applicable- those unerring judges of old books and old wine -the Roxburghe Club of London?
Have you not heard that I have been chosen a member of that Society of
select Bibliomaniacs?*
Dryasdust. (Rummagingin 7is poclcet.) I did hear something of it from
Captain Clutterbuck, who wrote to me- ay, here is his letter - that such a
report was current among the Scottish antiquaries, who were much alarmed
lest you should be seduced into the heresy of preferring English beef to
seven-year-old black-faced mutton, Maraschino to whisky, and turtle-soup to
cock-a-leekie; in which case, they must needs renounce you as a lost man.
- " But," adds our friend, (looking at the letter) - his hand is rather of a
military description, better used to handle the sword than the pen-" Oihr
friend is so much upon the SHUN"-the shun, I think it is —" that it must
be no light temptation which will withdraw him fiom his incognito."
Author. No light temptation, unquestionably; but this is a powerful one,
to hob-or-nob with the lords of the literary treasures of Althorpe and Hodnet, in Madeira negus, brewed by the classical Dibdin - to share those pro~
found debates which stamp accurately on each " small volume, dark with
tarnish'd gold," its collar, not of S. S. but of R. R. - to toast the immortal
memory of Caxton, Valdarar, Pynson, and the other fathers of that great
art, which has made all, and each of us, what we are. These, my dear son,
are temptations, to which you see me now in the act of resigning that quiet
* The author has pride in recording, that he had the honour to be elected a member of this distinguished
association, merely as the Author of Waverley, without any other designation; and it was an additional in.
ducement to throw off the mask of an anonymous author, that it gives ahilo a right to occupy the vacant chahi
at that festive board.