nce; and thus it will be readily seen how much the painter
of antique or of fashionable manners gains over him who delineates those
of the last generation.

Considering the disadvantages inseparable from this part of my subject, I
must be understood to have resolved to avoid them as much as possible, by
throwing the force of my narrative upon the characters and passions of
the actors;--those passions common to men in all stages of society, and
which have alike agitated the human heart, whether it throbbed under the
steel corslet of the fifteenth century, the brocaded coat of the
eighteenth, or the blue frock and white dimity waistcoat of the present
day. [Footnote: Alas' that attire, respectable and gentlemanlike in 1805,
or thereabouts, is now as antiquated as the Author of Waverley has
himself become since that period! The reader of fashion will please to
fill up the costume with an embroidered waistcoat of purple velvet or
silk, and a coat of whatever colour he pleases.] Upon these passions it
is no doubt true that the state of manners and laws casts a necessary
colouring; but the bearings, to use the language of heraldry, remain the
same, though the tincture may be not only different, but opposed in
strong contradistinction. The wrath of our ancestors, for example, was
coloured gules; it broke forth in acts of open and sanguinary violence
against the objects of its fury. Our malignant feelings, which must seek
gratification through more indirect channels, and undermine the obstacles
which they cannot openly bear down, may be rather said to be tinctured
sable. But the deep-ruling impulse is the same in both cases; and the
proud peer, who can now only ruin his neighbour according to law, by
protracted suits, is the genuine descendant of the baron who wrapped the
castle of his competitor in flames, and knocked him on the head as he
endeavoured to escape from the conflagration. It is from the great book
of Nature, the same through a thousand editions, whether of black-letter,
or wire-wove and hot-pressed, that I have venturously essayed to read a
chapter to the public. Some favourable opportunities of contrast have
been afforded me by the state of society in the northern part of the
island at the period of my history, and may serve at once to vary and to
illustrate the moral lessons, which I would willingly consider as the
most important part of my plan; although I am sensible how short these
will fall of their aim if I