Like many a poor fellow, already overwhelmed with the number of his family, I cannot help going on to increase it – “‘Tis my vocation, Hal.” – Such of you as deserve oblivion – perhaps the whole of you – may be consigned to it. At any rate, you have been read in your day, which is more than can be said of some of your contemporaries, of less fortune and more merit. They cannot say but that you had the crown. It is always something to have engaged the public attention for seven years. Had I only written Waverley, I should have long since been, according to the established phrase, “the ingenious author of a novel much admired at the time.” I believe, on my soul, that the reputation of Waverley is sustained very much by the praises of those, who may be inclined to prefer that tale to its successors.
Captain. You are willing, then, to barter future reputation for present popularity?
Author. Meliora spero. Horace himself expected not to survive in all his works – I may hope to live in some of mine; —non omnis moriar. It is some consolation to reflect, that the best authors in all countries have been the most voluminous; and it has often happened, that those who have been best received in their own time, have also continued to be acceptable to posterity. I do not think so ill of the present generation, as to suppose that its present favour necessarily infers future condemnation.
Captain. Were all to act on such principles, the public would be inundated.
Author Once more, my dear son, beware of cant. You speak as if the public were obliged to read books merely because they are printed – your friends the booksellers would thank you to make the proposition good. The most serious grievance attending such inundations as you talk of, is, that they make rags dear. The multiplicity of publications does the present age no harm, and may greatly advantage that which is to succeed us.
Captain. I do not see how that is to happen.
Author. The complaints in the time of Elizabeth and James, of the alarming fertility of the press, were as loud as they are at present – yet look at the shore over which the inundation of that age flowed, and it resembles now the Rich Strand of the Faery Queen —
– “Besrrew’d all with rich array,
Of pearl and precious stones of great assay;
And all the gravel mix’d with golden ore.”
Believe me, that even in the most neglected works of the present age, the next may discover treasures.
Captain. Some books will defy all alchemy.
Author. They will be but few in number; since, as for the writers, who are possessed of no merit at all, unless indeed they publish their works at their own expense, like Sir Richard Blackmore, their power of annoying the public will be soon limited by the difficulty of finding undertaking booksellers.
Captain. You are incorrigible. Are there no bounds to your audacity?
Author. There are the sacred and eternal boundaries of honour and virtue. My course is like the enchanted chamber of Britomart —
“Where as she look’d about, she did behold
How over that same door was likewise writ,
Be Bold – Be Bold, and everywhere Be Bold.
Whereat she mused, and could not construe it;
At last she spied at that room’s upper end
Another iron door, on which was writ —
BE NOT TOO BOLD.”
Captain. Well, you must take the risk of proceeding on your own principles.
Author. Do you act on yours, and take care you do not stay idling here till the dinner hour is over. – I will add this work to your patrimony, valeat quantum.
Here our dialogue terminated; for a little sooty-faced Apollyon from the Canongate came to demand the proof-sheet on the part of Mr. M’Corkindale; and I heard Mr. C. rebuking Mr. F. in another compartment of the same labyrinth I have described, for suffering any one to penetrate so far into the penetralia of their temple.
I leave it to you to form your own opinion concerning the import of this dialogue, and I cannot but believe I shall meet the wishes of our common parent in prefixing this letter to the work which it concerns.
I am, reverend and dear Sir,
Very sincerely and affectionately
Yours,
THE FORTUNES OF NIGEL
Knifegrinder. Story? Lord bless you! I have none to tell, sir.
CHAPTER I
Now Scot and English are agreed,
And Saunders hastes to cross the Tweed,
Where, such the splendours that attend him,
His very mother scarce had kend him.
His metamorphosis behold,
From Glasgow frieze to cloth of gold;
His back-sword, with the iron hilt,
To rapier, fairly hatch’d and gilt;
Was ever seen a gallant braver!
His very bonnet’s grown a beaver.
The long-continued hostilities which had for centuries separated the south and the north divisions of the Island of Britain, had been happily terminated by the succession of the pacific James I. to the English Crown. But although the united crown of England and Scotland was worn by the same individual, it required a long lapse of time, and the succession of more than one generation, ere the inveterate national prejudices which had so long existed betwixt the sister kingdoms were removed, and the subjects of either side of the Tweed brought to regard those upon the opposite bank as friends and as brethren.
These prejudices were, of course, most inveterate during the reign of King James. The English subjects accused him of partiality to those of his ancient kingdom; while the Scots, with equal injustice, charged him with having forgotten the land of his nativity, and with neglecting those early friends to whose allegiance he had been so much indebted.
The temper of the king, peaceable even to timidity, inclined him perpetually to interfere as mediator between the contending factions, whose brawls disturbed the Court. But, notwithstanding all his precautions, historians have recorded many instances, where the mutual hatred of two nations, who, after being enemies for a thousand years, had been so very recently united, broke forth with a fury which menaced a general convulsion; and, spreading from the highest to the lowest classes, as it occasioned debates in council and parliament, factions in the court, and duels among the gentry, was no less productive of riots and brawls amongst the lower orders.
While these heart-burnings were at the highest, there flourished in the city of London an ingenious but whimsical and self opinioned mechanic, much devoted to abstract studies, David Ramsay by name, who, whether recommended by his great skill in his profession, as the courtiers alleged, or, as was murmured among the neighbours, by his birthplace, in the good town of Dalkeith, near Edinburgh, held in James’s household the post of maker of watches and horologes to his Majesty. He scorned not, however, to keep open shop within Temple Bar, a few yards to the eastward of Saint Dunstan’s
