othing if you had
so agitated a youth of genius and susceptibility, prone to literary
enthusiasm, but such a victory over an old hack is perhaps worthy of
your notice.--I am, my dear Miss Ferrier, your friend and admirer,

"J. MACKINTOSH."

Professor Wilson, "Christopher North," and his uncle, Mr. Robert Sym,
W.S., "Timothy Tickler," discuss the merits of _Destiny_ in the
far-famed _Noctes_:

"_Tickler.--' _I would also except Miss Susan Ferrier. Her novels, no
doubt, have many defects, their plots are poor, their episodes
disproportionate, and the characters too often caricatures; but they are
all thick-set with such specimens of sagacity, such happy traits of
nature, such flashes of genuine satire, such easy humour, sterling good
sense, and, above all--God only knows where she picked it up--mature and
perfect knowledge of the world, that I think we may safely anticipate
for them a different fate from what awaits even the cleverest of
juvenile novels.'

"_North.-' _They are the works of a very clever woman, sir, and they
have one feature of true and melancholy interest quite peculiar to
themselves. It is in them alone that the ultimate breaking-down and
debasement of the Highland character has been depicted. Sir Walter Scott
had fixed the enamel of genius over the last fitful gleams of their
half-savage chivalry, but a humbler and sadder scene--the age of
lucre-banished clans--of chieftains dwindled into imitation squires, and
of chiefs content to barter the recollections of a thousand years for a
few gaudy seasons of Almacks and Crockfords, the euthanasia of kilted
aldermen and steamboat pibrochs was reserved for Miss Ferrier.'

"_Tickler.--' _She in general fails almost as egregiously as Hook does
in the pathetic [1] but in her last piece there is one scene of this
description worthy of either Sterne or Goldsmith. I mean where the young
man [2] supposed to have been lost at sea, revisits, after a lapse of
time, the precincts of his own home, watching unseen in the twilight the
occupations and bearings of the different members of the family, and
resolving, under the influence of a most generous feeling, to keep the
secret of his preservation.'

[1] This is not true, as there are many pathetic passages in _Destiny_,
particularly between Edith, the heroine, and her faithless lover, Sir
Reginald.

[2] Ronald Malcolm.

"_North.-' _I remember it well, and you might bestow the same kind of
praise on the whole cha