together that class of productions, in one of which the private
and family affairs of your learned northern friend, Mr Oldbuck of
Monkbarns, were so unjustifiably exposed to the public, some
discussion occurred between us concerning the cause of the
popularity these works have attained in this idle age, which,
whatever other merit they possess, must be admitted to be hastily
written, and in violation of every rule assigned to the epopeia.
It seemed then to be your opinion, that the charm lay entirely in
the art with which the unknown author had availed himself, like a
second M'Pherson, of the antiquarian stores which lay scattered
around him, supplying his own indolence or poverty of invention,
by the incidents which had actually taken place in his country at
no distant period, by introducing real characters, and scarcely
suppressing real names. It was not above sixty or seventy years,
you observed, since the whole north of Scotland was under a state
of government nearly as simple and as patriarchal as those of our
good allies the Mohawks and Iroquois. Admitting that the author
cannot himself be supposed to have witnessed those times, he must
have lived, you observed, among persons who had acted and
suffered in them; and even within these thirty years, such an
infinite change has taken place in the manners of Scotland, that
men look back upon the habits of society proper to their
immediate ancestors, as we do on those of the reign of Queen
Anne, or even the period of the Revolution. Having thus
materials of every kind lying strewed around him, there was
little, you observed, to embarrass the author, but the difficulty
of choice. It was no wonder, therefore, that, having begun to
work a mine so plentiful, he should have derived from his works
fully more credit and profit than the facility of his labours
merited.