from the press before Messrs. Archibald Constable and Co. are bringing
out their reprint of the famous 48-volume edition of the Novels; and
Mr. Barrie is supposed to be meditating another, with introductory
notes of his own upon each Novel. In my own opinion nothing has ever
beaten, or come near to beat, the 48-volume "Waverley" of 1829; and
Messrs. Constable and Co. were happily inspired when they decided to
make this the basis of their new edition. They have improved upon it
in two respects. The paper is lighter and better. And each novel is
kept within its own covers, whereas in the old editions a volume would
contain the end of one novel and beginning of another. The original
illustrations, by Wilkie, Landseer, Leslie, Stanfield, Bonington, and
the rest, have been retained, in order to make the reprint complete.
But this seems to me a pity; for a number of them were bad to begin
with, and will be worse than ever now, being reproduced (as I
understand) from impressions of the original plates. To do without
illustrations were a counsel of perfection. But now that the novels
have become historical, surely it were better to illustrate them with
authentic portraits of Scott, pictures of scenery, facsimiles of MSS.,
and so on, than with (_e.g._) a worn reproduction of what Mr. F.P.
Stephanoff thought that Flora Mac-Ivor looked like while playing the
harp and introducing a few irregular strains which harmonized well
with the distant waterfall and the soft sigh of the evening breeze in
the rustling leaves of an aspen which overhung the fair
harpress--especially as F.P. Stephanoff does not seem to have known
the difference between an aspen and a birch.

In short, did it not contain the same illustrations, this edition
would probably excel even that of 1828. As it is, after many
disappointments, we now have a cheap Waverley on what has always been
the best model.