[Illustration: Halbert Glendinning Invoking The White Lady]

[Illustration: WAVERLEY NOVELS ABBOTSFORD EDITION]

             THE WAVERLY NOVELS
                    by
              SIR WALTER SCOTT.

                 Complete
             In Twelve Volumes

                 Printed
       from the latest English Editions
                Embracing
 The Author's Last Corrections, Prefaces, and Notes.


              THE MONASTERY.


INTRODUCTION--(1830.)

It would be difficult to assign any good reason why the author of
Ivanhoe, after using, in that work, all the art he possessed to remove
the personages, action, and manners of the tale, to a distance from
his own country, should choose for the scene of his next attempt the
celebrated ruins of Melrose, in the immediate neighbourhood of his own
residence. But the reason, or caprice, which dictated his change of
system, has entirely escaped his recollection, nor is it worth while
to attempt recalling what must be a matter of very little consequence.

The general plan of the story was, to conjoin two characters in that
bustling and contentious age, who, thrown into situations which gave
them different views on the subject of the Reformation, should, with
the same sincerity and purity of intention, dedicate themselves, the
one to the support of the sinking fabric of the Catholic Church, the
other to the establishment of the Reformed doctrines. It was
supposed that some interesting subjects for narrative might be
derived from opposing two such enthusiasts to each other in the path
of life, and contrasting the real worth of both with their passions
and prejudices. The localities of Melrose suited well the scenery of
the proposed story; the ruins themselves form a splendid theatre for
any tragic incident which might be brought forward; joined to the
vicinity of the fine river, with all its tributary streams, flowing
through a country which has been the scene of so much fierce
fighting, and is rich with so many recollections of former times,
and lying almost under the immediate eye of the author, by whom they
were to be used in composition.

The situation possessed farther recommendations. On the opposite bank
of the Tweed might be seen the remains of ancient enclosures,
surrounded by sycamores and ash-trees of considerable size. These had
once formed the crofts or arable ground of a village, now reduced to a
single hut, the abode of a fisherman, who also manages a ferry. The
cottages, even the church which once existed there, have sunk into
vestiges hardly to be traced without visiting the spot, the
inhabitants having gradually withdrawn to the more prosperous town of
Galashiels, which has risen into consideration, within two miles of
their neighbourhood. Superstitious eld, however, has tenanted the
deserted groves with aerial beings, to supply the want of the mortal
tenants who have deserted it. The ruined and abandoned churchyard of
Boldside has been long believed to be haunted by the Fairies, and the
deep broad current of the Tweed, wheeling in moonlight round the foot
of the steep bank, with the number of trees originally planted for
shelter round the fields of the cottagers, but now presenting the
effect of scattered and detached groves, fill up the idea which one
would form in imagination for a scene that Oberon and Queen Mab might
love to revel in.  There are evenings when the spectator might
believe, with Father Chaucer, that the

  --Queen of Faery,
  With harp, and pipe, and symphony,
  Were dwelling in the place.

Another, and even a more familiar refuge of the elfin race, (if
tradition is to be trusted,) is the glen of the river, or rather
brook, named the Allen, which falls into the Tweed from the northward,
about a quarter of a mile above the present bridge. As the streamlet
finds its way behind Lord Sommerville's hunting-seat, called the
Pavilion, its valley has been popularly termed the Fairy Dean, or
rather the Nameless Dean, because of the supposed ill luck attached by
the popular faith of ancient times, to any one who might name or
allude to the race, whom our fathers distinguished as the Good
Neighbours, and the Highlanders called Daoine Shie, or Men of Peace;
rather by way of compliment, than on account of any particular idea of
friendship or pacific relation which either Highlander or Borderer
entertained towards the irritable beings whom they thus distinguished,
or supposed them to bear to humanity.  [Footnote: See Rob Roy, Note,
p. 202.]

In evidence of the actual operations of the fairy people even at this
time, little pieces of calcareous matter are found in the glen after a
flood, which either the labours of those tiny artists, or the eddies
of the brook among the stones, have formed into a fantastic
resemblance of cups, saucers, basins, and the like, in which children
who gather them pretend to discern fairy utensils.

Besides these circumstances of romantic locality, _mea paupera
regna_ (as Captain Dalgetty denominates his territory of
Drumthwacket) are bounded by a small but deep lake, from which eyes
that yet look on the light are said to have seen the waterbull ascend,
and shake the hills with his roar.

Indeed, the country around Melrose, if possessing less of romantic
beauty than some other scenes in Scotland, is connected with so many
associations of a fanciful nature, in which the imagination takes
delight, as might well induce one even less attached to the spot than
the author, to accommodate, after a general manner, the imaginary
scenes he was framing to the localities to which he was partial. But
it would be a misapprehension to suppose, that, because Melrose may in
general pass for Kennaquhair, or because it agrees with scenes of the
Monastery in the circumstances of the drawbridge, the milldam, and
other points of resemblance, that therefore an accurate or perfect
local similitude is to be found in all the particulars of the picture.
It was not the purpose of the author to present a landscape copied
from nature, but a piece of composition, in which a real scene, with
which he is familiar, had afforded him some leading outlines. Thus the
resemblance of the imaginary Glendearg with the real vale of the
Allen, is far from being minute, nor did the author aim at identifying
them. This must appear plain to all who know the actual character of
the Glen of Allen, and have taken the trouble to read the account of
the imaginary Glendearg.  The stream in the latter case is described
as wandering down a romantic little valley, shifting itself, after the
fashion of such a brook, from one side to the other, as it can most
easily find its passage, and touching nothing in its progress that
gives token of cultivation. It rises near a solitary tower, the abode
of a supposed church vassal, and the scene of several incidents in the
Romance.

The real Allen, on the contrary, after traversing the romantic ravine
called the Nameless Dean, thrown off from side to side alternately,
like a billiard ball repelled by the sides of the table on which it
has been played, and in that part of its course resembling the stream
which pours down Glendearg, may be traced upwards into a more open
country, where the banks retreat farther from each other, and the vale
exhibits a good deal of dry ground, which has not been neglected by
the active cultivators of the district. It arrives, too, at a sort of
termination, striking in itself, but totally irreconcilable with the
narrative of the Romance.  Instead of a single peel-house, or border
tower of defence, such as Dame Glendinning is supposed to have
inhabited, the head of the Allen, about five miles above its junction
with the Tweed, shows three ruins of Border houses, belonging to
different proprietors, and each, from the desire of mutual support so
natural to troublesome times, situated at the extremity of the
property of which it is the principal messuage. One of these is the
ruinous mansion-house of Hillslap, formerly the property of the
Cairncrosses, and now of Mr. Innes of Stow; a second the tower of
Colmslie, an ancient inheritance of the Borthwick family, as is
testified by their crest, the Goat's Head, which exists on the ruin;
[Footnote: It appears that Sir Walter Scott's memory was not quite
accurate on these points. John Borthwick, Esq. in a note to the
publisher, (June I1, 1813.) says that _Colmslie_ belonged to Mr.
Innes of Stow, while _Hillslap_ forms part of the estate of
Crookston. He adds--"In proof that the tower of Hillslap, which I have
taken measures to preserve from injury, was chiefly in his head, as
the tower of _Glendearg,_ when writing the Monastery, I may
mention that, on one of the occasions when I had the honour of being a
visiter at Abbotsford, the stables then being full, I sent a pony to
be put up at our tenant's at Hillslap:--'Well.' said Sir Walter, 'if
you do that, you must trust for its not being _lifted_ before
to-morrow, to the protection of Halbert Glendinning: against Christie
of the Clintshill.' At page 58, vol.  iii., the first edition, the
'_winding_ stair' which the monk ascended is described. The
winding stone stair is still to be seen in Hillslap, but not in either
of the other two towers" It is.  however, probable, from the
Goat's-Head crest on Colmslie, that that tower also had been of old a
possession of the Borthwicks.] a third, the house of Langshaw, also
ruinous, but near which the proprietor, Mr. Baillie of Jerviswood and
Mellerstain, has built a small shooting box.

All these ruins, so strangely huddled together in a very solitary
spot, have recollections and traditions of their own, but none of them
bear the most distant resemblance to the descriptions in the Romance
of the Monastery; and as the author could hardly have erred so grossly
regarding a spot within a morning's ride of his own house, the
inference is, that no resemblance was intended. Hillslap is remembered
by the humours of the last inhabitants, two or three elderly ladies,
of the class of Miss Raynalds, in the Old Manor House, though less
important by birth and fortune. Colmslie is commemorated in song:--

  Colmslie stands on Colmslie hill.
  The water it flows round Colmslie mill;
  The mill and the kiln gang bonnily.
  And it's up with the whippers of Colmslie.

Langshaw, although larger than the other mansions assembled at the
head of the supposed Glendearg, has nothing about it more remarkable
than the inscription of the present proprietor over his shooting
lodge--_Utinam hane eliam viris impleam amicis_--a modest wish,
which I know no one more capable of attaining upon an extended scale,
than the gentleman who has expressed it upon a limited one.

Having thus shown that I could say something of these desolated
towers, which the desire of social intercourse, or the facility of
mutual defence, had drawn together at the head of this Glen, I need
not add any farther reason to show, that there is no resemblance
between them and the solitary habitation of Dame Elspeth Glendinning.
Beyond these dwellings are some remains of natural wood, and a
considerable portion of morass and bog; but I would not advise any who
may be curious in localities, to spend time in looking for the
fountain and holly-tree of the White Lady.

While I am on the subject I may add, that Captain Clutterbuck, the
imaginary editor of the Monastery, has no real prototype in the
village of Melrose or neighbourhood, that ever I saw or heard of. To
give some individuality to this personage, he is described as a
character which sometimes occurs in actual society--a person who,
having spent his life within the necessary duties of a technical
profession, from which he has been at length emancipated, finds
himself without any occupation whatever, and is apt to become the prey
of ennui, until he discerns some petty subject of investigation
commensurate to his talents, the study of which gives him employment
in solitude; while the conscious possession of information peculiar to
himself, adds to his consequence in society. I have often observed,
that the lighter and trivial branches of antiquarian study are
singularly useful in relieving vacuity of such a kind, and have known
them serve many a Captain Clutterbuck to retreat upon; I was therefore
a good deal surprised, when I found the antiquarian Captain identified
with a neighbour and friend of my own, who could never have been
confounded with him by any one who had read the book, and seen the
party alluded to. This erroneous identification occurs in a work
entitled, "Illustrations of the Author of Waverley, being Notices and
Anecdotes of real Characters, Scenes, and Incidents, supposed to be
described in his works, by Robert Chambers." This work was, of course,
liable to many errors, as any one of the kind must be, whatever may be
the ingenuity of the author, which takes the task of explaining what
can be only known to another person. Mistakes of place or inanimate
things referred to, are of very little moment; but the ingenious
author ought to have been more cautious of attaching real names to
fictitious characters.  I think it is in the Spectator we read of a
rustic wag, who, in a copy of "The Whole Duty of Man," wrote opposite
to every vice the name of some individual in the neighbourhood, and
thus converted that excellent work into a libel on a whole parish.

The scenery being thus ready at the author's hand, the reminiscences
of the country were equally favourable. In a land where the horses
remained almost constantly saddled, and the sword seldom quitted the
warrior's side--where war was the natural and constant state of the
inhabitants, and peace only existed in the shape of brief and feverish
truces--there could be no want of the means to complicate and
extricate the incidents of his narrative at pleasure. There was a
disadvantage, notwithstanding, in treading this Border district, for
it had been already ransacked by the author himself, as well as
others; and unless presented under a new light, was likely to afford
ground to the objection of _Crambe bis cocta_.

To attain the indispensable quality of novelty, something, it was
thought, might be gained by contrasting the character of the vassals
of the church with those of the dependants of the lay barons, by whom
they were surrounded. But much advantage could not be derived from
this. There were, indeed, differences betwixt the two classes, but,
like tribes in the mineral and vegetable world, which, resembling each
other to common eyes, can be sufficiently well discriminated by
naturalists, they were yet too similar, upon the whole, to be placed
in marked contrast with each other.

Machinery remained--the introduction of the supernatural and
marvellous; the resort of distressed authors since the days of Horace,
but whose privileges as a sanctuary have been disputed in the present
age, and well-nigh exploded. The popular belief no longer allows the
possibility of existence to the race of mysterious beings which
hovered betwixt this world and that which is invisible.  The fairies
have abandoned their moonlight turf; the witch no longer holds her
black orgies in the hemlock dell; and

  Even the last lingering phantom of the brain,
  The churchyard ghost, is now at rest again.

From the discredit attached to the vulgar and more common modes in
which the Scottish superstition displays itself, the author was
induced to have recourse to the beautiful, though almost forgotten,
theory of astral spirits, or creatures of the elements, surpassing
human beings in knowledge and power, but inferior to them, as being
subject, after a certain space of years, to a death which is to them
annihilation, as they have no share in the promise made to the sons of
Adam. These spirits are supposed to be of four distinct kinds, as the
elements from which they have their origin, and are known, to those
who have studied the cabalistical philosophy, by the names of Sylphs,
Gnomes, Salamanders, and Naiads, as they belong to the elements of
Air, Earth, Fire, or Water. The general reader will find an
entertaining account of these elementary spirits in the French book
entitled, "Entretiens de Compte du Gabalis." The ingenious Compte de
la Motte Fouqu? composed, in German, one of the most successful
productions of his fertile brain, where a beautiful and even
afflicting effect is produced by the introduction of a water-nymph,
who loses the privilege of immortality by consenting to become
accessible to human feelings, and uniting her lot with that of a
mortal, who treats her with ingratitude.

In imitation of an example so successful, the White Lady of Avenel
was introduced into the following sheets. She is represented as
connected with the family of Avenel by one of those mystic ties,
which, in ancient times, were supposed to exist, in certain
circumstances, between the creatures of the elements and the
children of men. Such instances of mysterious union are recognized
in Ireland, in the real Milosian families, who are possessed of a
Banshie; and they are known among the traditions of the Highlands,
which, in many cases, attached an immortal being or spirit to the
service of particular families or tribes. These demons, if they are
to be called so, announced good or evil fortune to the families
connected with them; and though some only condescended to meddle
with matters of importance, others, like the May Mollach, or Maid of
the Hairy Arms, condescended to mingle in ordinary sports, and even
to direct the Chief how to play at draughts.

There was, therefore, no great violence in supposing such a being as
this to have existed, while the elementary spirits were believed in;
but it was more difficult to describe or imagine its attributes and
principles of action. Shakespeare, the first of authorities in such a
case, has painted Ariel, that beautiful creature of his fancy, as only
approaching so near to humanity as to know the nature of that sympathy
which the creatures of clay felt for each other, as we learn from the
expression--"Mine would, if I were human." The inferences from this
are singular, but seem capable of regular deduction. A being, however
superior to man in length of life--in power over the elements--in
certain perceptions respecting the present, the past, and the future,
yet still incapable of human passions, of sentiments of moral good and
evil, of meriting future rewards or punishments, belongs rather to the
class of animals, than of human creatures, and must therefore be
presumed to act more from temporary benevolence or caprice, than from
anything approaching to feeling or reasoning. Such a being's
superiority in power can only be compared to that of the elephant or
lion, who are greater in strength than man, though inferior in the
scale of creation. The partialities which we suppose such spirits to
entertain must be like those of the dog; their sudden starts of
passion, or the indulgence of a frolic, or mischief, may be compared
to those of the numerous varieties of the cat. All these propensities
are, however, controlled by the laws which render the elementary race
subordinate to the command of man--liable to be subjected by his
science, (so the sect of Gnostics believed, and on this turned the
Rosicrucian philosophy,) or to be overpowered by his superior courage
and daring, when it set their illusions at defiance.

It is with reference to this idea of the supposed spirits of the
elements, that the White Lady of Avenel is represented as acting a
varying, capricious, and inconsistent part in the pages assigned to
her in the narrative; manifesting interest and attachment to the
family with whom her destinies are associated, but evincing whim, and
even a species of malevolence, towards other mortals, as the
Sacristan, and the Border robber, whose incorrect life subjected them
to receive petty mortifications at her hand. The White Lady is
scarcely supposed, however, to have possessed either the power or the
inclination to do more than inflict terror or create embarrassment,
and is also subjected by those mortals, who, by virtuous resolution,
and mental energy, could assert superiority over her. In these
particulars she seems to constitute a being of a middle class, between
the _esprit follet_ who places its pleasure in misleading and
tormenting mortals, and the benevolent Fairy of the East, who
uniformly guides, aids, and supports them.

Either, however, the author executed his purpose indifferently, or
the public did not approve of it; for the White Lady of Avenel was
far from being popular. He does not now make the present statement,
in the view of arguing readers into a more favourable opinion on the
subject, but merely with the purpose of exculpating himself from the
charge of having wantonly intruded into the narrative a being of
inconsistent powers and propensities.

In the delineation of another character, the author of the Monastery
failed, where he hoped for some success. As nothing is so successful a
subject for ridicule as the fashionable follies of the time, it
occurred to him that the more serious scenes of his narrative might be
relieved by the humour of a cavaliero of the age of Queen Elizabeth.
In every period, the attempt to gain and maintain the highest rank of
society, has depended on the power of assuming and supporting a
certain fashionable kind of affectation, usually connected with some
vivacity of talent and energy of character, but distinguished at the
same time by a transcendent flight, beyond sound reason and common
sense; both faculties too vulgar to be admitted into the estimate of
one who claims to be esteemed "a choice spirit of the age." These, in
their different phases, constitute the gallants of the day, whose
boast it is to drive the whims of fashion to extremity.

On all occasions, the manners of the sovereign, the court, and the
time, must give the tone to the peculiar description of qualities by
which those who would attain the height of fashion must seek to
distinguish themselves. The reign of Elizabeth, being that of a maiden
queen, was distinguished by the decorum of the courtiers, and
especially the affectation of the deepest deference to the sovereign.
After the acknowledgment of the Queen's matchless perfections, the
same devotion was extended to beauty as it existed among the lesser
stars in her court, who sparkled, as it was the mode to say, by her
reflected lustre. It is true, that gallant knights no longer vowed to
Heaven, the peacock, and the ladies, to perform some feat of
extravagant chivalry, in which they endangered the lives of others as
well as their own; but although their chivalrous displays of personal
gallantry seldom went farther in Elizabeth's days than the tilt-yard,
where barricades, called barriers, prevented the shock of the horses,
and limited the display of the cavalier's skill to the comparatively
safe encounter of their lances, the language of the lovers to their
ladies was still in the exalted terms which Amadis would have
addressed to Oriana, before encountering a dragon for her sake. This
tone of romantic gallantry found a clever but conceited author, to
reduce it to a species of constitution and form, and lay down the
courtly manner of conversation, in a pedantic book, called Euphues and
his England. Of this, a brief account is given in the text, to which
it may now be proper to make some additions.

The extravagance of Euphuism, or a symbolical jargon of the same
class, predominates in the romances of Calprenade and Scuderi, which
were read for the amusement of the fair sex of France during the
long reign of Louis XIV., and were supposed to contain the only
legitimate language of love and gallantry. In this reign they
encountered the satire of Moliere and Boileau. A similar disorder,
spreading into private society, formed the ground of the affected
dialogue of the _Praecieuses_, as they were styled, who formed
the coterie of the Hotel de Rambouillet, and afforded Moliere matter
for his admirable comedy, _Les Praecieuses Ridicules_. In
England, the humour does not seem to have long survived the
accession of James I.

The author had the vanity to think that a character, whose
peculiarities should turn on extravagances which were once universally
fashionable, might be read in a fictitious story with a good chance of
affording amusement to the existing generation, who, fond as they are
of looking back on the actions and manners of their ancestors, might
be also supposed to be sensible of their absurdities. He must fairly
acknowledge that he was disappointed, and that the Euphuist, far from
being accounted a well drawn and humorous character of the period, was
condemned as unnatural and absurd.  It would be easy to account for
this failure, by supposing the defect to arise from the author's want
of skill, and, probably, many readers may not be inclined to look
farther. But as the author himself can scarcely be supposed willing to
acquiesce in this final cause, if any other can be alleged, he has
been led to suspect, that, contrary to what he originally supposed,
his subject was injudiciously chosen, in which, and not in his mode of
treating it, lay the source of the want of success.

The manners of a rude people are always founded on nature, and
therefore the feelings of a more polished generation immediately
sympathize with them. We need no numerous notes, no antiquarian
dissertations, to enable the most ignorant to recognize the sentiments
and diction of the characters of Homer; we have but, as Lear says, to
strip off our lendings--to set aside the factitious principles and
adornments which we have received from our comparatively artificial
system of society, and our natural feelings are in unison with those
of the bard of Chios and the heroes who live in his verses. It is the
same with a great part of the narratives of my friend Mr. Cooper. We
sympathize with his Indian chiefs and back-woodsmen, and acknowledge,
in the characters which he presents to us, the same truth of human
nature by which we should feel ourselves influenced if placed in the
same condition. So much is this the case, that, though it is
difficult, or almost impossible, to reclaim a savage, bred from his
youth to war and the chase, to the restraints and the duties of
civilized life, nothing is more easy or common than to find men who
have been educated in all the habits and comforts of improved society,
willing to exchange them for the wild labours of the hunter and the
fisher. The very amusements most pursued and relished by men of all
ranks, whose constitutions permit active exercise, are hunting,
fishing, and, in some instances, war, the natural and necessary
business of the savage of Dryden, where his hero talks of being

  --"As free as nature first made man,
  When wild in woods the noble savage ran."

But although the occupations, and even the sentiments, of human beings
in a primitive state, find access and interest in the minds of the
more civilized part of the species, it does not therefore follow, that
the national tastes, opinions, and follies of one civilized period,
should afford either the same interest or the same amusement to those
of another. These generally, when driven to extravagance, are founded,
not upon any natural taste proper to the species, but upon the growth
of some peculiar cast of affectation, with which mankind in general,
and succeeding generations in particular, feel no common interest or
sympathy. The extravagances of coxcombry in manners and apparel are
indeed the legitimate and often the successful objects of satire,
during the time when they exist. In evidence of this, theatrical
critics may observe how many dramatic _jeux d'esprit_ are well
received every season, because the satirist levels at some well-known
or fashionable absurdity; or, in the dramatic phrase, "shoots folly as
it flies." But when the peculiar kind of folly keeps the wing no
longer, it is reckoned but waste of powder to pour a discharge of
ridicule on what has ceased to exist; and the pieces in which such
forgotten absurdities are made the subject of ridicule, fall quietly
into oblivion with the follies which gave them fashion, or only
continue to exist on the scene, because they contain some other more
permanent interest than that which connects them with manners and
follies of a temporary character.

This, perhaps, affords a reason why the comedies of Ben Jonson,
founded upon system, or what the age termed humours,--by which was
meant factitious and affected characters, superinduced on that which
was common to the rest of their race,--in spite of acute satire, deep
scholarship, and strong sense, do not now afford general pleasure, but
are confined to the closet of the antiquary, whose studies have
assured him that the personages of the dramatist were once, though
they are now no longer, portraits of existing nature.

Let us take another example of our hypothesis from Shakspeare himself,
who, of all authors, drew his portraits for all ages. With the whole
sum of the idolatry which affects us at his name, the mass of readers
peruse, without amusement, the characters formed on the extravagances
of temporary fashion; and the Euphuist Don Armado, the pedant
Holofernes, even Nym and Pistol, are read with little pleasure by the
mass of the public, being portraits of which we cannot recognize the
humour, because the originals no longer exist.  In like manner, while
the distresses of Romeo and Juliet continue to interest every bosom,
Mercutio, drawn as an accurate representation of the finished fine
gentleman of the period, and as such received by the unanimous
approbation of contemporaries, has so little to interest the present
age, that, stripped of all his puns, and quirks of verbal wit, he only
retains his place in the scene, in virtue of his fine and fanciful
speech upon dreaming, which belongs to no particular age, and because
he is a personage whose presence is indispensable to the plot.

We have already prosecuted perhaps too far an argument, the tendency
of which is to prove, that the introduction of an humorist, acting
like Sir Piercie Shafton, upon some forgotten and obsolete model of
folly, once fashionable, is rather likely to awaken the disgust of the
reader, as unnatural, than find him food for laughter. Whether owing
to this theory, or whether to the more simple and probable cause of
the author's failure in the delineation of the subject he had proposed
to himself, the formidable objection of _incredulus odi_ was
applied to the Euphuist, as well as to the White Lady of Avenel; and
the one was denounced as unnatural, while the other was rejected as
impossible.

There was little in the story to atone for these failures in two
principal points. The incidents were inartificially huddled together.
There was no part of the intrigue to which deep interest was found to
apply; and the conclusion was brought about, not by incidents arising
out of the story itself, but in consequence of public transactions,
with which the narrative has little connexion, and which the reader
had little opportunity to become acquainted with.

This, if not a positive fault, was yet a great defect in the Romance.
It is true, that not only the practice of some great authors in this
department, but even the general course of human life itself, may be
quoted in favour of this more obvious and less artificial practice of
arranging a narrative.  It is seldom that the same circle of
personages who have surrounded an individual at his first outset in
life, continue to have an interest in his career till his fate comes
to a crisis. On the contrary, and more especially if the events of his
life be of a varied character, and worth communicating to others, or
to the world, the hero's later connexions are usually totally
separated from those with whom he began the voyage, but whom the
individual has outsailed, or who have drifted astray, or foundered on
the passage. This hackneyed comparison holds good in another point.
The numerous vessels of so many different sorts, and destined for such
different purposes, which are launched in the same mighty ocean,
although each endeavours to pursue its own course, are in every case
more influenced by the winds and tides, which are common to the
element which they all navigate, than by their own separate exertions.
And it is thus in the world, that, when human prudence has done its
best, some general, perhaps national, event, destroys the schemes of
the individual, as the casual touch of a more powerful being sweeps
away the web of the spider.

Many excellent romances have been composed in this view of human life,
where the hero is conducted through a variety of detached scenes, in
which various agents appear and disappear, without, perhaps, having
any permanent influence on the progress of the story. Such is the
structure of Gil Blas, Roderick Random, and the lives and adventures
of many other heroes, who are described as running through different
stations of life, and encountering various adventures, which are only
connected with each other by having happened to be witnessed by the
same individual, whose identity unites them together, as the string of
a necklace links the beads, which are otherwise detached.

But though such an unconnected course of adventures is what most
frequently occurs in nature, yet the province of the romance writer
being artificial, there is more required from him than a mere
compliance with the simplicity of reality,--just as we demand from the
scientific gardener, that he shall arrange, in curious knots and
artificial parterres, the flowers which "nature boon" distributes
freely on hill and dale. Fielding, accordingly, in most of his novels,
but especially in Tom Jones, his _chef-d'oeuvre_, has set the
distinguished example of a story regularly built and consistent in all
its parts, in which nothing occurs, and scarce a personage is
introduced, that has not some share in tending to advance the
catastrophe.

To demand equal correctness and felicity in those who may follow in
the track of that illustrious novelist, would be to fetter too much
the power of giving pleasure, by surrounding it with penal rules;
since of this sort of light literature it may be especially
said--_tout genre est permis, hors le genre ennuyeux_. Still,
however, the more closely and happily the story is combined, and the
more natural and felicitous the catastrophe, the nearer such a
composition will approach the perfection of the novelist's art; nor
can an author neglect this branch of his profession, without incurring
proportional censure.

For such censure the Monastery gave but too much occasion. The
intrigue of the Romance, neither very interesting in itself, nor very
happily detailed, is at length finally disentangled by the breaking
out of national hostilities between England and Scotland, and the as
sudden renewal of the truce. Instances of this kind, it is true,
cannot in reality have been uncommon, but the resorting to such, in
order to accomplish the catastrophe, as by a _tour de force_, was
objected to as inartificial, and not perfectly, intelligible to the
general reader.

Still the Monastery, though exposed to severe and just criticism, did
not fail, judging from the extent of its circulation, to have some
interest for the public. And this, too, was according to the ordinary
course of such matters; for it very seldom happens that literary
reputation is gained by a single effort, and still more rarely is it
lost by a solitary miscarriage.

The author, therefore, had his days of grace allowed him, and time, if
he pleased, to comfort himself with the burden of the old Scots song,

  "If it isna weel bobbit.
  We'll bob it again."

ABBOTSFORD,
_1st November_, 1830.


       *       *       *       *       *


INTRODUCTORY EPISTLE

FROM CAPTAIN CLUTTERBUCK, LATE OF HIS MAJESTY'S ---- REGIMENT OF
INFANTRY, TO THE AUTHOR OF WAVERLEY.

Sir,

Although I do not pretend to the pleasure of your personal
acquaintance, like many whom I believe to be equally strangers to you,
I am nevertheless interested in your publications, and desire their
continuance;-not that I pretend to much taste in fictitious
composition, or that I am apt to be interested in your grave scenes,
or amused by those which are meant to be lively. I will not disguise
from you, that I have yawned over the last interview of MacIvor and
his sister, and fell fairly asleep while the schoolmaster was reading
the humours of Dandie Dinmont. You see, sir, that I scorn to solicit
your favour in a way to which you are no stranger. If the papers I
enclose you are worth nothing, I will not endeavour to recommend them
by personal flattery, as a bad cook pours rancid butter upon stale
fish. No, sir! what I respect in you is the light you have
occasionally thrown on national antiquities, a study which I have
commenced rather late in life, but to which I am attached with the
devotions of a first love, because it is the only study I ever cared a
farthing for.

You shall have my history, sir, (it will not reach to three volumes,)
before that of my manuscript; and as you usually throw out a few lines
of verse (by way of skirmishers, I suppose) at the head of each
division of prose, I have had the luck to light upon a stanza in the
schoolmaster's copy of Burns which describes me exactly. I love it the
better, because it was originally designed for Captain Grose, an
excellent antiquary, though, like yourself, somewhat too apt to treat
with levity his own pursuits:

  'Tis said he was a soldier bred,
  And ane wad rather fa'en than fled;
  But now he's quit the spurtle blade,
                   And dog-skin wallet,
  And ta'en the--antiquarian trade,
                I think, they call it.

I never could conceive what influenced me, when a boy, in the choice
of a profession. Military zeal and ardour it was not, which made me
stand out for a commission in the Scots Fusiliers, when my tutors
and curators wished to bind me apprentice to old David Stiles, Clerk
to his Majesty's Signet. I say, military zeal it was _not_; for
I was no fighting boy in my own person, and cared not a penny to
read the history of the heroes who turned the world upside down in
former ages. As for courage, I had, as I have since discovered, just
as much of it as serve'd my turn, and not one frain of surplus. I
soon found out, indeed, that in action there was more anger in
running away than in standing fast; and besides, I could not afford
to lose my commission, which was my chief means of support. But, as
for that overboiling valour, which I have heard many of _ours_
talk of, though I seldom observed that it influenced them in the
actual affair---that exuberant zeal, which courts Danger as a
bride,--truly my courage was of a complexion much less ecstatical.

Again, the love of a red coat, which, in default of all other
aptitudes to the profession, has made many a bad soldier and some good
ones, was an utter stranger to my disposition. I cared not a  "bodle"
for the company of the misses: Nay, though there was a boarding-school
in the village, and though we used to meet with its fair inmates at
Simon Lightfoot's weekly Practising, I cannot recollect any strong
emotions being excited on these occasions, excepting the infinite
regret with which I went through the polite ceremonial of presenting
my partner with an orange, thrust into my pocket by my aunt for this
special purpose, but which, had I dared, I certainly would have
secreted for my own personal use. As for vanity, or love of finery for
itself, I was such a stranger to it, that the difficulty was great to
make me brush my coat, and appear in proper trim upon parade. I shall
never forget the rebuke of my old Colonel on a morning when the King
reviewed a brigade of which ours made part. "I am no friend to
extravagance, Ensign Clutterbuck," said he; "but, on the day when we
are to pass before the Sovereign of the kingdom, in the name of God I
would have at least shown him an inch of clean linen."

Thus, a stranger to the ordinary motives which lead young men to make
the army their choice, and without the least desire to become either a
hero or a dandy, I really do not know what determined my thoughts that
way, unless it were the happy state of half-pay indolence enjoyed by
Captain Doolittle, who had set up his staff of rest in my native
village. Every other person had, or seemed to have, something to do,
less or more. They did not, indeed, precisely go to school and learn
tasks, that last of evils in my estimation; but it did not escape my
boyish observation, that they were all bothered with something or
other like duty or labour--all but the happy Captain Doolittle. The
minister had his parish to visit, and his preaching to prepare, though
perhaps he made more fuss than he needed about both.  The laird had
his farming and improving operations to superintend; and, besides, he
had to attend trustee meetings, and lieutenancy meetings, and
head-courts, and meetings of justices, and what not--was as early up,
(that I detested,) and as much in the open air, wet and dry, as his
own grieve.  The shopkeeper (the village boasted but one of eminence)
stood indeed pretty much at his ease behind his counter, for his
custom was by no means overburdensome; but still he enjoyed his
_status_, as the Bailie calls it, upon condition of tumbling all
the wares in his booth over and over, when any one chose to want a
yard of muslin, a mousetrap, an ounce of caraways, a paper of pins,
the Sermons of Mr. Peden, or the Life of Jack the Giant-Queller, (not
Killer, as usually erroneously written and pronounced.--See my essay
on the true history of this worthy, where real facts have in a
peculiar degree been obscured by fable.) In short, all in the village
were under the necessity of doing something which they would rather
have left undone, excepting Captain Doolittle, who walked every
morning in the open street, which formed the high mall of our village,
in a blue coat with a red neck, and played at whist the whole evening,
when he could make up a party.  This happy vacuity of all employment
appeared to me so delicious, that it became the primary hint, which,
according to the system of Helvetius, as the minister says, determined
my infant talents towards the profession I was destined to illustrate.

But who, alas! can form a just estimate of their future prospects in
this deceitful world? I was not long engaged in my new profession,
before I discovered, that if the independent indolence of half-pay was
a paradise, the officer must pass through the purgatory of duty and
service in order to gain admission to it. Captain Doolittle might
brush his blue coat with the red neck, or leave it unbrushed, at his
pleasure; but Ensign Clutterbuck had no such option. Captain Doolittle
might go to bed at ten o'clock, if he had a mind; but the Ensign must
make the rounds in his turn. What was worse, the Captain might repose
under the tester of his tent-bed until noon, if he was so pleased; but
the Ensign, God help him, had to appear upon parade at peep of day. As
for duty, I made that as easy as I could, had the sergeant to whisper
to me the words of command, and bustled through as other folks did. Of
service, I saw enough for an indolent man--was buffeted up and down
the world, and visited both the East and West Indies, Egypt, and other
distant places, which my youth had scarce dreamed of.  The French I
saw, and felt too; witness two fingers on my right hand, which one of
their cursed hussars took off with his sabre as neatly as an hospital
surgeon. At length, the death of an old aunt, who left me some fifteen
hundred pounds, snugly vested in the three per cents, gave me the
long-wished-for opportunity of retiring, with the prospect of enjoying
a clean shirt and a guinea four times a-week at least.

For the purpose of commencing my new way of life, I selected for my
residence the village of Kennaquhair, in the south of Scotland,
celebrated for the ruins of its magnificent Monastery, intending there
to lead my future life in the _otium cum dignitate_ of half-pay
and annuity. I was not long, however, in making the grand discovery,
that in order to enjoy leisure, it is absolutely necessary it should
be preceded by occupation. For some time, it was delightful to wake at
daybreak, dreaming of the reveill?--then to recollect my happy
emancipation from the slavery that doomed me to start at a piece of
clattering parchment, turn on my other side, damn the parade, and go
to sleep again. But even this enjoyment had its termination; and time,
when it became a stock entirely at my own disposal, began to hang
heavy on my hand.

I angled for two days, during which time I lost twenty hooks, and
several scores of yards of gut and line, and caught not even a minnow.
Hunting was out of the question, for the stomach of a horse by no
means agrees with the half-pay establishment. When I shot, the
shepherds, and ploughmen, and my very dog, quizzed me every time that
I missed, which was, generally speaking, every time I fired. Besides,
the country gentlemen in this quarter like their game, and began to
talk of prosecutions and interdicts.  I did not give up fighting the
French to commence a domestic war with the "pleasant men of
Teviotdale," as the song calls them; so I e'en spent three days (very
agreeably) in cleaning my gun, and disposing it upon two hooks over my
chimney-piece.

The success of this accidental experiment set me on trying my skill in
the mechanical arts. Accordingly I took down and cleaned my landlady's
cuckoo-clock, and in so doing, silenced that companion of the spring
for ever and a day. I mounted a turning-lathe, and in attempting to
use it, I very nearly cribbed off, with an inch-and-half former, one
of the fingers which the hussar had left me.

Books I tried, both those of the little circulating library, and of
the more rational subscription collection maintained by this
intellectual people. But neither the light reading of the one, nor the
heavy artillery of the other, suited my purpose. I always fell asleep
at the fourth or fifth page of history or disquisition; and it took me
a month's hard reading to wade through a half-bound trashy novel,
during which I was pestered with applications to return the volumes,
by every half-bred milliner's miss about the place.  In short, during
the time when all the town besides had something to do, I had nothing
for it, but to walk in the church-yard, and whistle till it was
dinner-time.

During these promenades, the ruins necessarily forced themselves on my
attention, and, by degrees, I found myself engaged in studying the
more minute ornaments, and at length the general plan, of this noble
structure.  The old sexton aided my labours, and gave me his portion
of traditional lore. Every day added something to my stock of
knowledge respecting the ancient state of the building; and at length
I made discoveries concerning the purpose of several detached and very
ruinous portions of it, the use of which had hitherto been either
unknown altogether or erroneously explained.

The knowledge which I thus acquired I had frequent opportunities of
retailing to those visiters whom the progress of a Scottish tour
brought to visit this celebrated spot. Without encroaching on the
privilege of my friend the sexton, I became gradually an assistant
Cicerone in the task of description and explanation, and often (seeing
a fresh party of visiters arrive) has he turned over to me those to
whom he had told half his story, with the flattering observation,
"What needs I say ony mair about it?  There's the Captain kens mair
anent it than I do, or any man in the town." Then would I salute the
strangers courteously, and expatiate to their astonished minds upon
crypts and chancels, and naves, arches, Gothic and Saxon architraves,
mullions and flying buttresses. It not unfrequently happened, that an
acquaintance which commenced in the Abbey concluded in the inn, which
served to relieve the solitude as well as the monotony of my
landlady's shoulder of mutton, whether roast, cold, or hashed.

By degrees my mind became enlarged; I found a book or two which
enlightened me on the subject of Gothic architecture, and I read now
with pleasure, because I was interested in what I read about. Even my
character began to dilate and expand. I spoke with more authority at
the club, and was listened to with deference, because on one subject,
at least, I possessed more information than any of its members.
Indeed, I found that even my stories about Egypt, which, to say truth,
were somewhat threadbare, were now listened to with more respect than
formerly. "The Captain," they said, "had something in him after
a',--there were few folk kend sae muckle about the Abbey."

With this general approbation waxed my own sense of self-importance,
and my feeling of general comfort. I ate with more appetite, I
digested with more ease, I lay down at night with joy, and slept sound
till morning, when I arose with a sense of busy importance, and hied
me to measure, to examine, and to compare the various parts of this
interesting structure. I lost all sense and consciousness of certain
unpleasant sensations of a nondescript nature, about my head and
stomach, to which I had been in the habit of attending, more for the
benefit of the village apothecary than my own, for the pure want of
something else to think about. I had found out an occupation
unwittingly, and was happy because I had something to do.  In a word,
I had commenced local antiquary, and was not unworthy of the name.

Whilst I was in this pleasing career of busy idleness, for so it might
at best be called, it happened that I was one night sitting in my
little parlour, adjacent to the closet which my landlady calls my
bedroom, in the act of preparing for an early retreat to the realms of
Morpheus. Dugdale's Monasticon, borrowed from the library at A------,
was lying on the table before me, flanked by some excellent Cheshire
cheese, (a present, by the way, from an honest London citizen, to whom
I had explained the difference between a Gothic and a Saxon arch,) and
a glass of Vanderhagen's best ale. Thus armed at all points against my
old enemy Time, I was leisurely and deliciously preparing for bed--now
reading a line of old Dugdale--now sipping my ale, or munching my
bread and cheese--now undoing the strings at my breeches' knees, or a
button or two of my waistcoat, until the village clock should strike
ten, before which time I make it a rule never to go to bed.  A loud
knocking, however, interrupted my ordinary process on this occasion,
and the voice of my honest landlord of the George was heard
vociferating, [Footnote: The George was, and is, the principal inn in
the village of Kennaquhair, or Melrose. But the landlord of the period
was not the same civil and quiet person by whom the inn is now kept.
David Kyle, a Melrose proprietor of no little importance, a first-rate
person of consequence in whatever belonged to the business of the
town, was the original owner and landlord of the inn. Poor David, like
many other busy men, took so much care of public affairs, as in some
degree to neglect his own. There are persons still alive at
Kennaquhair who can recognise him and his peculiarities in the
following sketch of mine Host of the George.] "What the deevil, Mrs.
Grimslees, the Captain is no in his bed?  and a gentleman at our house
has ordered a fowl and minced collops, and a bottle of sherry, and has
sent to ask him to supper, to tell him all about the Abbey."