(March, 1815) pronounced himself
to be "quite charmed with Dandie, Meg Merrilies, and Dirk
Hatteraick,--characters as original as true to nature, and as forcibly
conceived as, I had almost said, could have been drawn by Shakspeare
himself." The public were not less appreciative. Two thousand copies, at
a guinea, were sold the day after publication, and three thousand more
were disposed of in three months. The professional critics acted just as
Scott, speaking in general terms, had prophesied that they would. Let us
quote the "British Critic" (1815).

"There are few spectacles in the literary world more lamentable than to
view a successful author, in his second appearance before the public,
limping lamely after himself, and treading tediously and awkwardly in the
very same round, which, in his first effort, he had traced with vivacity
and applause. We would not be harsh enough to say that the Author of
'Waverley' is in this predicament, but we are most unwillingly compelled
to assert that the second effort falls far below the standard of the
first. In 'Waverley' there was brilliancy of genius.... In 'Guy
Mannering' there is little else beyond the wild sallies of an original
genius, the bold and irregular efforts of a powerful but an exhausted
mind. Time enough has not been allowed him to recruit his resources, both
of anecdote and wit; but, encouraged by the credit so justly, bestowed
upon one of then most finished portraits ever presented to the world, he
has followed up the exhibition with a careless and hurried sketch, which
betrays at once the weakness and the strength of its author.

"The character of Dirk Hatteraick is a faithful copy from nature,--it is
one of those moral monsters which make us almost ashamed of our kind.
Still, amidst the ruffian and murderous brutality of the smuggler, some
few feelings of our common nature are thrown in with no less ingenuity
than truth. . . . The remainder of the personages are very little above
the cast of a common lively novel. . . . The Edinburgh lawyer is perhaps
the most original portrait; nor are the saturnalia of the Saturday
evenings described without humour. The Dominie is overdrawn and
inconsistent; while the young ladies present nothing above par. . . .

"There are parts of this novel which none but one endowed with the
sublimity of genius could have dictated; there are others which any
ordinary character cobbler might as easily have stitched together. There
are