principled as he, wherefore I thought it would be no great fault to give
him the trouble to go to jail with the rest.'"

Nobody who read this could doubt that Scott was, at least, "art and part"
in the review. His efforts to disguise himself as an Englishman, aided by
a Scotch antiquary, are divertingly futile. He seized the chance of
defending his earlier works from some criticisms on Scotch manners
suggested by the ignorance of Gifford. Nor was it difficult to see that
the author of the review was also the author of the novel. In later years
Lady Louisa Stuart reminded Scott that "Old Mortality," like the Iliad,
had been ascribed by clever critics to several hands working together. On
December 5, 1816, she wrote to him, "I found something you wot of upon my
table; and as I dare not take it with me to a friend's house, for fear of
arousing curiosity"--she read it at once. She could not sleep afterwards,
so much had she been excited. "Manse and Cuddie forced me to laugh out
aloud, which one seldom does when alone." Many of the Scotch words "were
absolutely Hebrew" to her. She not unjustly objected to Claverhouse's use
of the word "sentimental" as an anachronism. Sentiment, like nerves, had
not been invented in Claverhouse's day.

The pecuniary success of "Old Mortality" was less, perhaps, than might
have been expected. The first edition was only of two thousand copies.
Two editions of this number were sold in six weeks, and a third was
printed. Constable's gallant enterprise of ten thousand, in "Rob Roy,"
throws these figures into the shade.

"Old Mortality" is the first of Scott's works in which he invades history
beyond the range of what may be called living oral tradition. In
"Waverley," and even in "Rob Roy," he had the memories of Invernahyle, of
Miss Nairne, of many persons of the last generation for his guides. In