of the Bride of Lammermoor actually occurred in a Scottish family of
rank. The female relative, by whom the melancholy tale was communicated
to me many years since, was a near connection of the family in which
the event happened, and always told it with an appearance of melancholy
mystery which enhanced the interest. She had known in her youth the
brother who rode before the unhappy victim to the fatal altar, who,
though then a mere boy, and occupied almost entirely with the gaiety of
his own appearance in the bridal procession, could not but remark that
the hand of his sister was moist, and cold as that of a statue. It
is unnecessary further to withdraw the veil from this scene of family
distress, nor, although it occurred more than a hundred years since,
might it be altogether agreeable to the representatives of the families
concerned in the narrative. It may be proper to say that the events
alone are imitated; but I had neither the means nor intention of copying
the manners, or tracing the characters, of the persons concerned in the
real story. Indeed, I may here state generally that, although I have
deemed historical personages free subjects of delineation, I have never
on any occasion violated the respect due to private life. It was indeed
impossible that traits proper to persons, both living and dead, with
whom I have had intercourse in society, should not have risen to my
pen in such works as Waverley, and those which followed it. But I have
always studied to generalize the portraits, so that they should still
seem, on the whole, the productions of fancy, though possessing some
resemblance to real individuals. Yet I must own my attempts have not
in this last particular been uniformly successful. There are men whose
characters are so peculiarly marked, that the delineation of some
leading and principal feature inevitably places the whole person before
you in his individuality. Thus, the character of Jonathan Oldbuck, in
the Antiquary, was partly founded on that of an old friend of my youth,
to whom I am indebted for introducing me to Shakespeare, and other
invaluable favours; but I thought I had so completely disguised the
likeness that his features could not be recognized by any one now alive.
I was mistaken, however, and indeed had endangered what I desired
should be considered as a secret; for I afterwards learned that a
highly-respectable gentleman, one of the few surviving friends of my
father, and an acute c