The Project Gutenberg EBook of Bride of Lammermoor, by Sir Walter Scott

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Title: Bride of Lammermoor

Author: Sir Walter Scott

Release Date: January 16, 2006 [EBook #471]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR ***

Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer and David Widger

THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR

by Sir Walter Scott

INTRODUCTION TO THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR

THE Author, on a former occasion, declined giving the real source
from which he drew the tragic subject of this history, because, though
occurring at a distant period, it might possibly be unpleasing to the
feelings of the descendants of the parties. But as he finds an account
of the circumstances given in the Notes to Law's Memorials, by his
ingenious friend, Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, Esq., and also indicated
in his reprint of the Rev. Mr. Symson's poems appended to the Large
Description of Galloway, as the original of the Bride of Lammermoor, the
Author feels himself now at liberty to tell the tale as he had it from
connexions of his own, who lived very near the period, and were closely
related to the family of the bride.

It is well known that the family of Dalrymple, which has produced,
within the space of two centuries, as many men of talent, civil and
military, and of literary, political, and professional eminence, as any
house in Scotland, first rose into distinction in the person of James
Dalrymple, one of the most eminent lawyers that ever lived, though the
labours of his powerful mind were unhappily exercised on a subject so
limited as Scottish jurisprudence, on which he has composed an admirable
work.

He married Margaret, daughter to Ross of Balneel, with whom he obtained
a considerable estate. She was an able, politic, and high-minded woman,
so successful in what she undertook, that the vulgar, no way partial to
her husband or her family, imputed her success to necromancy. According
to the popular belief, this Dame Margaret purchased the temporal
prosperity of her family from the Master whom she served under a
singular condition, which is thus narrated by the historian of her
grandson, the great Ea