by Walter Scott
CHAPTER LXXII
A POSTSCRIPT WHICH SHOULD HAVE BEEN A PREFACE
Our journey is now finished, gentle reader; and if your patience hasaccompanied me through these sheets, the contract is, on your part,strictly fulfilled. Yet, like the driver who has received his fullhire, I still linger near you, and make, with becoming diffidence, atrifling additional claim upon your bounty and good nature. You are asfree, however, to shut the volume of the one petitioner as to closeyour door in the face of the other.
This should have been a prefatory chapter, but for two reasons: First,that most novel readers, as my own conscience reminds me, are apt to beguilty of the sin of omission respecting that same matter of prefaces;Secondly, that it is a general custom with that class of students tobegin with the last chapter of a work; so that, after all, theseremarks, being introduced last in order, have still the best chance tobe read in their proper place.
There is no European nation which, within the course of half a centuryor little more, has undergone so complete a change as this kingdom ofScotland. The effects of the insurrection of 1745,--the destruction ofthe patriarchal power of the Highland chiefs,--the abolition of theheritable jurisdictions of the Lowland nobility and barons,--the totaleradication of the Jacobite party, which, averse to intermingle withthe English, or adopt their customs, long continued to pride themselvesupon maintaining ancient Scottish manners and customs,--commenced thisinnovation. The gradual influx of wealth and extension of commerce havesince united to render the present people of Scotland a class of beingsas different from their grandfathers as the existing English are fromthose of Queen Elizabeth's time.
The political and economical effects of these changes have been tracedby Lord Selkirk with great precision and accuracy. But the change,though steadily and rapidly progressive, has nevertheless been gradual;and, like those who drift down the stream of a deep and smooth river,we are not aware of the progress we have made until we fix our eye onthe now distant point from which we have been drifted. Such of thepresent generation as can recollect the last twenty or twenty-fiveyears of the eighteenth century will be fully sensible of the truth ofthis statement; especially if their acquaintance and connexions layamong those who in my younger time were facetiously called 'folks ofthe old leaven,' who still cherished a lingering, though hopeless,attachment to the house of Stuart.
This race has now almost entirely vanished from the land, and with it,doubtless, much absurd political prejudice; but also many livingexamples of singular and disinterested attachment to the principles ofloyalty which they received from their fathers, and of old Scottishfaith, hospitality, worth, and honour.
It was my accidental lot, though not born a Highlander (which may be anapology for much bad Gaelic), to reside during my childhood and youthamong persons of the above description; and now, for the purpose ofpreserving some idea of the ancient manners of which I have witnessedthe almost total extinction, I have embodied in imaginary scenes, andascribed to fictitious characters, a part of the incidents which I thenreceived from those who were actors in them. Indeed, the most romanticparts of this narrative are precisely those which have a foundation infact.
The exchange of mutual protection between a Highland gentleman and anofficer of rank in the king's service, together with the spiritedmanner in which the latter asserted his right to return the favour hehad received, is literally true. The accident by a musket shot, and theheroic reply imputed to Flora, relate to a lady of rank not longdeceased. And scarce a gentleman who was 'in hiding' after the battleof Culloden but could tell a tale of strange concealments and of wildand hair'sbreadth'scapes as extraordinary as any which I have ascribedto my heroes. Of this, the escape of Charles Edward himself, as themost prominent, is the most striking example. The accounts of thebattle of Preston and skirmish at Clifton are taken from the narrativeof intelligent eye-witnesses, and corrected from the 'History of theRebellion' by the late venerable author of 'Douglas.' The LowlandScottish gentlemen and the subordinate characters are not given asindividual portraits, but are drawn from the general habits of theperiod, of which I have witnessed some remnants in my younger days, andpartly gathered from tradition.
It has been my object to describe these persons, not by a caricaturedand exaggerated use of the national dialect, but by their habits,manners, and feelings, so as in some distant degree to emulate theadmirable Irish portraits drawn by Miss Edgeworth, so different fromthe 'Teagues' and 'dear joys' who so long, with the most perfect familyresemblance to each other, occupied the drama and the novel.
I feel no confidence, however, in the manner in which I have executedmy purpose. Indeed, so little was I satisfied with my production, thatI laid it aside in an unfinished state, and only found it again by mereaccident among other waste papers in an old cabinet, the drawers ofwhich I was rummaging in order to accommodate a friend with somefishing-tackle, after it had been mislaid for several years.
Two works upon similar subjects, by female authors whose genius ishighly creditable to their country, have appeared in the interval; Imean Mrs. Hamilton's 'Glenburnie' and the late account of 'HighlandSuperstitions.' But the first is confined to the rural habits ofScotland, of which it has given a picture with striking and impressivefidelity; and the traditional records of the respectable and ingeniousMrs. Grant of Laggan are of a nature distinct from the fictitiousnarrative which I have here attempted.
I would willingly persuade myself that the preceding work will not befound altogether uninteresting. To elder persons it will recall scenesand characters familiar to their youth; and to the rising generationthe tale may present some idea of the manners of their forefathers.
Yet I heartily wish that the task of tracing the evanescent manners ofhis own country had employed the pen of the only man in Scotland whocould have done it justice--of him so eminently distinguished inelegant literature, and whose sketches of Colonel Caustic andUmphraville are perfectly blended with the finer traits of nationalcharacter. I should in that case have had more pleasure as a readerthan I shall ever feel in the pride of a successful author, shouldthese sheets confer upon me that envied distinction. And, as I haveinverted the usual arrangement, placing these remarks at the end of thework to which they refer, I will venture on a second violation of form,by closing the whole with a Dedication--
THESE VOLUMES BEING RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED TO OUR SCOTTISH ADDISON,HENRY MACKENZIE, BY AN UNKNOWN ADMIRER OF HIS GENIUS.
THE END
