s
utility constitutes merit in a novel, we have no hesitation in
preferring the moderns to their predecessors. We do not believe that any
man or woman was ever improved in morals or manners by the reading of
Tom Jones or Peregrine Pickle, though we are confident that many have
profited by the Tales of Fashionable Life, and the Cottagers of
Glenburnie.

We have heard Waverley called a Scotch Castle Rack-rent; and we have
ourselves alluded to a certain resemblance between these works; but we
must beg leave to explain that the resemblance consists only in this,
that the one is a description of the peculiarities of Scottish manners
as the other is of those of Ireland; and that we are far from placing on
the same level the merits and qualities of the works. Waverley is of a
much higher strain, and may be safely placed far above the amusing
vulgarity of Castle Rack-rent, and by the side of Ennui or the Absentee,
the best undoubtedly of Miss Edgeworth's compositions.

* * * * *

We shall conclude this article, which has grown to an immoderate length,
by observing what, indeed, our readers must have already discovered,
that Waverley, who gives his name to the story, is far from being its
hero, and that in truth the interest and merit of the work is derived,
not from any of the ordinary qualities of a novel, but from the truth of
its facts, and the accuracy of its delineations.

We confess that we have, speaking generally, a great objection to what
may be called historical romance, in which real and fictitious
personages, and actual and fabulous events are mixed together to the
utter confusion of the reader, and the unsettling of all accurate
recollections of past transactions; and we cannot but wish that the
ingenious and intelligent author of Waverley had rather employed himself
in recording _historically_ the character and transactions of his
countrymen _Sixty Years since_, than in writing a work, which, though it
may be, in its facts, almost true, and in its delineations perfectly
accurate, will yet, in sixty years _hence_, be regarded, or rather,
probably, _disregarded_, as a _mere_ romance, and the gratuitous
invention of a facetious fancy.

ON SCOTT'S "TALES OF MY LANDLORD"

[From _The Quarterly Review_, January, 1817]

_Tales of My Landlord_. 4 vols. 12mo. Third Edition. Blackwood,
Edinburgh. John Murray, London. 1817.

These Tales belong obviously to a class of novels which