les of My Landlord" on December
1, 1816. The first is certainly one of the best of Scott's
historical romances. It was the fourth of the "Waverley
Novels," and the authorship was still unavowed; though Mr.
Murray, the publisher, at once declared it "must be written
either by Walter Scott or the Devil." On the other hand, there
were critics who did not believe the book was Sir Walter's
because it lacked his "tedious descriptions." Some said openly
it was the work of several hands. The study of the fierce,
fanatical Covenanters in "Old Mortality" is done not only with
all the author's literary genius, but a wonderful fidelity to
historical truth; and while the accuracy of the portrait of
Claverhouse--"Bonny Dundee"--will always be disputed, no lover
of romance will question its brilliant charm. The immediate
popularity of "Old Mortality" was less than many of the
"Waverley Novels," only two editions, amounting to 4,000
copies, being sold in six weeks.

_I.--Tillietudlem Castle_

"Most readers," says the manuscript of Mr. Pattieson, "must have
witnessed with delight the joyous burst which attends the dismissing of
the village school. The buoyant spirit of childhood may then be seen to
explode, as it were, in shout and song and frolic; but there is one
individual who partakes of the relief, whose feelings are not so
obvious, or so apt to receive sympathy--the teacher himself."

The reader may form some conception of the relief which a solitary walk,
on a fine summer evening, affords to the head which has ached, and the
nerves which have been shattered for so many hours in plying the irksome
task of public instruction.

To me these evening strolls have been the happiest hours of an unhappy
life; and it was in one of them that I met, for the first time, the
religious itinerant known in various parts of Scotland by the title of
"Old Mortality." He was busily engaged in deepening with his chisel the
letters of the inscription upon the monument of the slaughtered
Presbyterians--those champions of the Covenant whose deeds and
sufferings were his favourite theme.

For nearly thirty years this pious enthusiast visited annually the
graves of those who suffered for the cause during the reigns of the last
two Stuarts, most numerous in the districts of Ayr, Galloway, and
Dumfries. To talk of their exploits was the delight, as to repair their
monu