t its value is
not diminished by having been restored through my means."

A tear mingled with the wine which the Baron filled, as he proposed a cup
of gratitude to Colonel Talbot, and 'The Prosperity of the united Houses
of Waverley-Honour and Bradwardine!'

It only remains for me to say that, as no wish was ever uttered with more
affectionate sincerity, there are few which, allowing for the necessary
mutability of human events, have been upon the whole more happily
fulfilled.

CHAPTER XLIII

A POSTSCRIPT WHICH SHOULD HAVE BEEN A PREFACE

Our journey is now finished, gentle reader; and if your patience has
accompanied me through these sheets, the contract is, on your part,
strictly fulfilled. Yet, like the driver who has received his full hire,
I still linger near you, and make, with becoming diffidence, a trifling
additional claim upon your bounty and good nature. You are as free,
however, to shut the volume of the one petitioner as to close your door
in the face of the other.

This should have been a prefatory chapter, but for two reasons: First,
that most novel readers, as my own conscience reminds me, are apt to be
guilty of the sin of omission respecting that same matter of prefaces;
Secondly, that it is a general custom with that class of students to
begin with the last chapter of a work; so that, after all, these remarks,
being introduced last in order, have still the best chance to be read in
their proper place.

There is no European nation which, within the course of half a century or
little more, has undergone so complete a change as this kingdom of
Scotland. The effects of the insurrection of 1745,--the destruction of
the patriarchal power of the Highland chiefs,--the abolition of the
heritable jurisdictions of the Lowland nobility and barons,--the total
eradication of the Jacobite party, which, averse to intermingle with the
English, or adopt their customs, long continued to pride themselves upon
maintaining ancient Scottish manners and customs,--commenced this
innovation. The gradual influx of wealth and extension of commerce have
since united to render the present people of Scotland a class of beings
as different from their grandfathers as the existing English are from
those of Queen Elizabeth's time.

The political and economical effects of these changes have been traced by
Lord Selkirk with great precision and accuracy. But the change, though
steadily and rapidly progressive, has nevert