of Harden) was lieutenant-colonel. This regiment was very active at
the destruction of Montrose's Highland army at Philiphaugh. In
Charles the Second's time the old knight suffered as much through
the nonconformity of his wife as Cuddie through that of his mother.
My father's grandmother, who lived to the uncommon age of
ninety-eight years, perfectly remembered being carried, when a
child, to the field-preachings, where the clergyman thundered from
the top of a rock, and the ladies sat upon their side-saddles, which
were placed upon the turf for their accommodation, while the men
stood round, all armed with swords and pistols. . . . Old Mortality
was a living person; I have myself seen him about twenty years ago
repairing the Covenanters' tombs as far north as Dunnottar.

If Lady Abercorn was in any doubt after this ingenuous communication, Mr.
Murray, the publisher, was in none. (Lockhart, v. 169.) He wrote to Scott
on December 14, 1816, rejoicing in the success of the Tales, "which must
be written either by Walter Scott or the Devil. . . . I never experienced
such unmixed pleasure as the reading of this exquisite work has afforded
me; and if you could see me, as the author's literary chamberlain,
receiving the unanimous and vehement praises of those who have read it,
and the curses of those whose needs my scanty supply could not satisfy,
you might judge of the sincerity with which I now entreat you to assure
the Author of the most complete success." Lord Holland had said, when Mr.
Murray asked his opinion, "Opinion! We did not one of us go to bed last
night,--nothing slept but my gout."

The very Whigs were conquered. But not the Scottish Whigs, the Auld
Leaven of the Covenant,--they were still dour, and offered many
criticisms. Thereon Scott, by way of disproving his authorship, offered
to review the Tales in the "Quarterly." His true reason for this step was