the wish to reply to Dr. Thomas McCrie, author of the "Life of John
Knox," who had been criticising Scott's historical view of the Covenant,
in the "Edinburgh Christian Instructor." Scott had, perhaps, no better
mode of answering his censor. He was indifferent to reviews, but here his
historical knowledge and his candour had been challenged. Scott always
recognised the national spirit of the Covenanters, which he remarks on in
"The Heart of Mid-Lothian," and now he was treated as a faithless
Scotsman. For these reasons he reviewed himself; but it is probable, as
Lockhart says, that William Erskine wrote the literary or aesthetic part
of the criticism (Lockhart, v.174, note).

Dr. McCrie's review may be read, or at least may be found, in the fourth
volume of his collected works (Blackwood, Edinburgh 1857). The critique
amounts to about eighty-five thousand words. Since the "Princesse de
Cleves" was reviewed in a book as long as the original, never was so
lengthy a criticism. As Dr. McCrie's performance scarcely shares the
popularity of "Old Mortality," a note on his ideas may not be
superfluous, though space does not permit a complete statement of his
many objections. The Doctor begins by remarks on novels in general, then
descends to the earlier Waverley romances. "The Antiquary" he pronounces
to be "tame and fatiguing." Acknowledging the merits of the others, he
finds fault with "the foolish lines" (from Burns), "which must have been
foisted without the author's knowledge into the title page," and he
denounces the "bad taste" of the quotation from "Don Quixote." Burns and
Cervantes had done no harm to Dr. McCrie, but his anger was aroused, and
he, like the McCallum More as described by Andrew Fairservice, "got up
wi' an unto' bang, and garr'd them a' look about them." The view of the
Covenanters is "false and distorted." These worthies are not to be
"abused with profane wit or low buffoonery." "Prayers were not read in
the parish churches of Scotland" at that time. As Episcopacy was restored