and vulgar, extravagant and mean. . . . The work would be,
on the whole, improved by being translated into English. Though we
cannot, on the whole, speak of the novel with approbation, we will not
affect to deny that we read it with interest, and that it repaid us with
amusement."

It is in reviewing "The Antiquary" that the immortal idiot of the
"Quarterly" complains about "the dark dialect of Anglified Erse."
Published criticism never greatly affected Scott's spirits,--probably, he
very seldom read it. He knew that the public, like Constable's friend
Mrs. Stewart, were "reading 'Guy Mannering' all day, and dreaming of it
all night."

Indeed, it is much better to read "Guy Mannering" than to criticise it. A
book written in six weeks, a book whose whole plot and conception was
changed "in the printing," must have its faults of construction. Thus, we
meet Mannering first as "a youthful lover," a wanderer at adventure, an
amateur astrologer, and suddenly we lose sight of him, and only recover
him as a disappointed, "disilluded," and weary, though still vigorous,
veteran. This is the inevitable result of a novel based on a prediction.
Either you have to leap some twenty years just when you are becoming
familiar with the persons, or you have to begin in the midst of the
events foreseen, and then make a tedious return to explain the prophecy.
Again, it was necessary for Scott to sacrifice Frank Kennedy, who is
rather a taking adventurer, like Bothwell in "Old Mortality." Readers
regret the necessity which kills Kennedy. The whole fortunes of Vanbeest
Brown, his duel with the colonel, and his fortunate appearance in the
nick of time, seem too rich in coincidences: still, as the Dormont case
and the Ormiston case have shown, coincidences as unlooked for do occur.
A fastidious critic has found fault with Brown's flageolet. It is a
modest instrument; but what was he to play upon,--a lute, a concertina, a
barrel-organ?

The characters of the young ladies have not always been applauded. Taste,
in the matter of heroines, varies greatly; Sir Walter had no high opinion
of his own skill in delineating them. But Julia Mannering is probably a
masterly picture of a girl of that age,--a girl with some silliness and
more gaiety, with wit, love of banter, and, in the last resort, sense and
good feeling. She is particularly good when, in fear and trembling, she
teases her imposing father.

"I expect," says Colonel Mannering, "that you w