his patron's
daughter cannot, apparently, be true of Mr. James Sanson. The prototype
of Pleydell, according to Sir Walter himself (Journal, June 19, 1830),
was "my old friend Adam Rolland, Esq., in external circumstances, but not
in frolic or fancy." Mr. Chambers, however, finds the original in Mr.
Andrew Crosbie, an advocate of great talents, who frolicked to ruin, and
died in 1785. Scott may have heard tales of this patron of "High Jinks,"
but cannot have known him much personally. Dandie Dinmont is simply the
typical Border farmer. Mr. Shortreed, Scott's companion in his Liddesdale
raids, thought that Willie Elliot, in Millburnholm, was the great
original. Scott did not meet Mr. James Davidson in Hindlee, owner of all
the Mustards and Peppers, till some years after the novel was written.
"Guy Mannering," when read to him, sent Mr. Davidson to sleep. "The kind
and manly character of Dandie, the gentle and delicious one of his wife,"
and the circumstances of their home, were suggested, Lockhart thinks, by
Scott's friend, steward, and amanuensis, Mr. William Laidlaw, by Mrs.
Laidlaw, and by their farm among the braes of Yarrow. In truth, the
Border was peopled then by Dandies and Ailies: nor is the race even now
extinct in Liddesdale and Teviotdale, in Ettrick and Yarrow. As for
Mustard and Pepper, their offspring too is powerful in the land, and is
the deadly foe of vermin. The curious may consult Mr. Cook's work on "The
Dandie Dinmont Terrier." The Duke of Buccleugh's breed still resembles
the fine example painted by Gainsborough in his portrait of the duke (of
Scott's time). "Tod Gabbie," again, as Lockhart says, was studied from
Tod Willie, the huntsman of the hills above Loch Skene. As for the
Galloway scenery, Scott did not know it well, having only visited "the
Kingdom" in 1793, when he was defending the too frolicsome Mr. McNaught,
Minister of Girthon. The beautiful and lonely wilds of the Glenkens, in
central Galloway, where traditions yet linger, were, unluckily, terra
incognita to Scott. A Galloway story of a murder and its detection by the
prints of the assassin's boots inspired the scene where Dirk Hatteraick
is traced by similar means. In Colonel Mannering, by the way, the Ettrick
Shepherd recognized "Walter Scott, painted by himself."

The reception of "Guy Mannering" was all that could be wished. William
Erskine and Ballantyne were "of opinion that it is much more interesting
than 'Waverley.'" Mr. Morritt