A TALE WHICH HOLDETH CHILDREN FROM PLAY & OLD MEN FROM THE CHIMNEY
CORNER
--SIR PHILIP SIDNEY


The FORTUNES OF NIGEL

by Sir WALTER SCOTT Bart




INTRODUCTION

But why should lordlings all our praise engross?
Rise, honest man, and sing the Man of Ross.

Pope

Having, in the tale of the Heart of Mid-Lothian, succeeded in some
degree in awakening an interest in behalf of one devoid of those
accomplishments which belong to a heroine almost by right, I was next
tempted to choose a hero upon the same unpromising plan; and as worth
of character, goodness of heart, and rectitude of principle, were
necessary to one who laid no claim to high birth, romantic
sensibility, or any of the usual accomplishments of those who strut
through the pages of this sort of composition, I made free with the
name of a person who has left the most magnificent proofs of his
benevolence and charity that the capital of Scotland has to display.