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.

PREFACE TO THE SURGEON'S DAUGHTER. 453
another, that I might stay at home and finish his confounded book, which,
after all, is about two brothers, the greatest rascals I ever heard of. The
one, sir, goes near to murder his own father, and the other (which you
would think still stranger) sets about to debauch his own wife."
"I find, then, Mr. Fairscribe, that you have no taste for the romance of
real life-no pleasure in contemplating those spirit-rousing impulses, which
force men of fiery passions upon great crimes and great virtues?"
"Why, as to that, I am not just so sure. But then to mend the matter,"
continued the critic, " you have brought in Highlanders into every story, as
if you were going back again, velis et remis, into the old days of Jacobitism.
I must speak my plain mind, Mr. Croftangry. I cannot tell what innovations in Kirk and State may now be proposed, but our fathers were friends
to both, as they were settled at the glorious Revolution, and liked a tartan
plaid as little as they did a white surplice. I wish to Heaven, all this
tartan fever bode well to the Protestant succession and the Kirk of Scotland."
"Both too well settled, I hope, in the minds of the subject," said I, "to
be affected by old remembrances, on which we look back as on the portraits
of our ancestors, without recollecting, while we gaze on them, any of the
feuds by which the originals were animated while alive. But most happy
should I be to light upon any topic to supply the place of the Highlands,
Mr. Fairscribe. I have been just reflecting that the theme is becoming a
little exhausted, and your experience may perhaps supply"
" Ha, ha, ha!-nmy experience supply!" interrupted Mr. Fairscribe, with
a laugh of derision;-" why, you might as well ask my son James's experience to supply a case-about thirlage. No, no, my good friend, I have
lived by the law, and in the law, all my life; and when you seek the impulses that make soldiers desert and shoot their sergeants and corporals,
and Highland drovers dirk English graziers, to prove themselves men of
fiery passions, it is not to a man like me you should come. I could tell you
some tricks of my own trade, perhaps, and a queer story or two of estates
that have been lost and recovered. But, to tell you the truth, I think you
might do with your Muse of Fiction, as you call her, as many an honest
man does with his own sons in flesh and blood."
" And how is that, my dear sir?"
" Send her to India, to be sure. That is the true place for a Scot to thrive
in; and if you carry your story fifty years back, as there is nothing to hinder you, you will find as much shooting and stabbing there as ever was in
the wild Highlands. If you want rogues, as they are so much in fashion
with you, you have that gallant caste of adventurers, who laid down their
consciences at the Cape of Good Hope as they went out to India, and forgot
to take them up again when they returned. Then, for great exploits, you
have in the old history of India, before Europeans were numerous there,
the most wonderful deeds, done by the least possible means, that perhaps
the annals of the world can afford."
"I know it," said I, kindling at the ideas his speech inspired. "I remember in the delightful pages of Orme, the interest which mingles in his
narratives, from the very small number of English which are engaged.
Each officer of a regiment becomes known to you by name, nay, the noncommissioned officers and privates acquire an individual share of interest.
They are distinguished among the natives like the Spaniards among the
Mexicans. What do I say? They are like Homer's demigods among the
warring mortals. Men, like Clive and Caillaud, influenced great events,
like Jove himself. Inferior officers are like Mars or Neptune; and the sergeants and corporals might well pass for demigods. Then the various religious costumes, habits, and manners of the people of Hindustan,-the
patient IIindhu, the warlike Rajahpoot, the haughty Moslemah, the savage
and vindictive Malay - Glorious and unbounded subjects! The only