ame milder, and my excellent friend was relieved from proscription by
the Act of Indemnity. Such is the interesting story which I have rather
injured than improved by the manner in which it is told in Waverley.

This incident, with several other circumstances illustrating the Tales
in question, was communicated by me to my late lamented friend,
William Erskine (a Scottish judge, by the title of Lord Kinedder),
who afterwards reviewed with far too much partiality the Tales of my
Landlord, for the Quarterly Review of January 1817. [Lord Kinedder died
in August 1822. EHEU! (Aug. 1831.)] In the same article are contained
other illustrations of the Novels, with which I supplied my accomplished
friend, who took the trouble to write the review. The reader who is
desirous of such information will find the original of Meg Merrilies,
and, I believe, of one or two other personages of the same cast of
character, in the article referred to.

I may also mention that the tragic and savage circumstances which are
represented as preceding the birth of Allan MacAulay in the Legend of
Montrose, really happened in the family of Stewart of Ardvoirlich.
The wager about the candlesticks, whose place was supplied by Highland
torch-bearers, was laid and won by one of the MacDonalds of Keppoch.

There can be but little amusement in winnowing out the few grains of
truth which are contained in this mass of empty fiction. I may, however,
before dismissing the subject, allude to the various localities which
have been affixed to some of the scenery introduced into these Novels,
by which, for example, Wolf's Hope is identified with Fast Castle in
Berwickshire, Tillietudlem with Draphane in Clydesdale, and the valley
in the Monastery, called Glendearg, with the dale of the river Allan,
above Lord Somerville's villa, near Melrose. I can only say that, in
these and other instances, I had no purpose of describing any particular
local spot; and the resemblance must therefore be of that general kind
which necessarily exists between scenes of the same character. The
iron-bound coast of Scotland affords upon its headlands and promontories
fifty such castles as Wolf's Hope; every county has a valley more or
less resembling Glendearg; and if castles like Tillietudlem, or mansions
like the Baron of Bradwardine's, are now less frequently to be met with,
it is owing to the rage of indiscriminate destruction, which has removed
or ruined so many monuments of antiqu