by Walter Scott
CHAPTER LXXII
A POSTSCRIPT WHICH SHOULD HAVE BEEN A PREFACE
Our journey is now finished, gentle reader; and if your patiencehas accompanied me through these sheets, the contract is, on yourpart, strictly fulfilled. Yet, like the driver who has receivedhis full hire, I still linger near you, and make, with becomingdiffidence, a trifling additional claim upon your bounty and goodnature. You are as free, however, to shut the volume of the onepetitioner as to close your 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 be guilty of the sin of omission respecting that samematter of prefaces; Secondly, that it is a general custom withthat class of students to begin with the last chapter of a work;so that, after all, these remarks, being introduced last in order,have still the best chance to be read in their proper place.
There is no European nation which, within the course of half acentury or little more, has undergone so complete a change as thiskingdom of Scotland. The effects of the insurrection of 1745,--thedestruction of the patriarchal power of the Highland chiefs,--theabolition of the heritable jurisdictions of the Lowland nobilityand barons,--the total eradication of the Jacobite party, which,averse to intermingle with the English, or adopt their customs,long continued to pride themselves upon maintaining ancientScottish manners and customs,--commenced this innovation. Thegradual influx of wealth and extension of commerce have sinceunited to render the present people of Scotland a class of beingsas different from their grandfathers as the existing English arefrom those of Queen Elizabeth's time.
The political and economical effects of these changes have beentraced by Lord Selkirk with great precision and accuracy. But thechange, though steadily and rapidly progressive, has neverthelessbeen gradual; and, like those who drift down the stream of a deepand smooth river, we are not aware of the progress we have madeuntil we fix our eye on the now distant point from which we havebeen drifted. Such of the present generation as can recollect thelast twenty or twenty-five years of the eighteenth century will befully sensible of the truth of this statement; especially if theiracquaintance and connexions lay among those who in my younger timewere facetiously called 'folks of the old leaven,' who stillcherished a lingering, though hopeless, attachment to the house ofStuart.
This race has now almost entirely vanished from the land, and withit, doubtless, much absurd political prejudice; but also manyliving examples of singular and disinterested attachment to theprinciples of loyalty which they received from their fathers, andof old Scottish faith, hospitality, worth, and honour.
It was my accidental lot, though not born a Highlander (which maybe an apology for much bad Gaelic), to reside during my childhoodand youth among persons of the above description; and now, for thepurpose of preserving some idea of the ancient manners of which Ihave witnessed the almost total extinction, I have embodied inimaginary scenes, and ascribed to fictitious characters, a part ofthe incidents which I then received from those who were actors inthem. Indeed, the most romantic parts of this narrative areprecisely those which have a foundation in fact.
The exchange of mutual protection between a Highland gentleman andan officer of rank in the king's service, together with thespirited manner in which the latter asserted his right to returnthe favour he had received, is literally true. The accident by amusket shot, and the heroic reply imputed to Flora, relate to alady of rank not long deceased. And scarce a gentleman who was 'inhiding' after the battle of Culloden but could tell a tale ofstrange concealments and of wild and hair'sbreadth'scapes asextraordinary as any which I have ascribed to my heroes. Of this,the escape of Charles Edward himself, as the most prominent, isthe most striking example. The accounts of the battle of Prestonand skirmish at Clifton are taken from the narrative ofintelligent 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 youngerdays, and partly gathered from tradition.
It has been my object to describe these persons, not by acaricatured and exaggerated use of the national dialect, but bytheir habits, manners, and feelings, so as in some distant degreeto emulate the admirable Irish portraits drawn by Miss Edgeworth,so different from the 'Teagues' and 'dear joys' who so long, withthe most perfect family resemblance to each other, occupied thedrama and the novel.
I feel no confidence, however, in the manner in which I haveexecuted my purpose. Indeed, so little was I satisfied with myproduction, that I laid it aside in an unfinished state, and onlyfound it again by mere accident among other waste papers in an oldcabinet, the drawers of which I was rummaging in order toaccommodate a friend with some fishing-tackle, after it had beenmislaid for several years.
Two works upon similar subjects, by female authors whose genius ishighly creditable to their country, have appeared in the interval;I mean Mrs. Hamilton's 'Glenburnie' and the late account of'Highland Superstitions.' But the first is confined to the ruralhabits of Scotland, of which it has given a picture with strikingand impressive fidelity; and the traditional records of therespectable and ingenious Mrs. Grant of Laggan are of a naturedistinct from the fictitious narrative which I have hereattempted.
I would willingly persuade myself that the preceding work will notbe found altogether uninteresting. To elder persons it will recallscenes and characters familiar to their youth; and to the risinggeneration the tale may present some idea of the manners of theirforefathers.
Yet I heartily wish that the task of tracing the evanescentmanners of his own country had employed the pen of the only man inScotland who could have done it justice--of him so eminentlydistinguished in elegant literature, and whose sketches of ColonelCaustic and Umphraville are perfectly blended with the finertraits of national character. I should in that case have had morepleasure as a reader than I shall ever feel in the pride of asuccessful author, should these sheets confer upon me that envieddistinction. And, as I have inverted the usual arrangement,placing these remarks at the end of the work to which they refer,I will venture on a second violation of form, by closing the wholewith a Dedication--
THESE VOLUMES BEING RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED TO OUR SCOTTISHADDISON, HENRY MACKENZIE, BY AN UNKNOWN ADMIRER OF HIS GENIUS.
THE END
