urings. Even the "Quarterly Review"
was infinitely more genial in its reception of "The Antiquary" than of
"Guy Mannering." The critic only grumbled at Lovel's feverish dreams,
which, he thought, showed an intention to introduce the marvellous. He
complained of "the dark dialect of Anglified Erse," but found comfort in
the glossary appended. The "Edinburgh Review" pronounced the chapter on
the escape from the tide to be "I the very best description we have ever
met, inverse or in prose, in ancient or in modern writing." No reviewer
seems to have noticed that the sun is made to set in the sea, on the
east coast of Scotland. The "Edinburgh," however, declared that the
Antiquary, "at least in so far as he is an Antiquary," was the chief
blemish on the book. The "sweet heathen of Monkbarns" has not suffered
from this disparagement. The "British Critic" pledged its reputation
that Scott was the author. If an argument were wanted, "it would be that
which has been applied to prove the authenticity of the last book of
the Iliad,--that Homer must have written it, because no one else could."
Alas! that argument does not convince German critics.

ANDREW LANG.

CHAPTER FIRST.

Go call a coach, and let a coach be called,
And let the man who calleth be the caller;
And in his calling let him nothing call,
But Coach! Coach! Coach! O for a coach, ye gods!
Chrononhotonthologos.

It was early on a fine summer's day, near the end of the eighteenth
century, when a young man, of genteel appearance, journeying towards the
north-east of Scotland, provided himself with a ticket in one of those
public carriages which travel between Edinburgh and the Queensferry,
at which place, as the name implies, and as is well known to all my
northern readers, there is a passage-boat for crossing the Firth of
Forth. The coach was calculated to carry six regular passengers, besides
such interlopers as the coachman could pick up by the way, and intrude
upon those who were legally in possession. The tickets, which conferred
right to a seat in this vehicle, of little ease, were dispensed by a
sharp-looking old dame, with a pair of spectacles on a very thin nose,
who inhabited a "laigh shop," anglice, a cellar, opening to the High
Street by a straight and steep stair, at the bottom of which she sold
tape, thread, need