n act of perjury, and undertaking a
pilgrimage to London to obtain her pardon, are both represented as true by
my fair and obliging correspondent; and they led me to consider the
possibility of rendering a fictitious personage interesting by mere dignity
of mind and rectitude of principle, assisted by unpretending good sense and
temper, without any of the beauty, grace, talent, accomplishment, and wit,
to which a heroine of romance is supposed to have a prescriptive right. If
the portrait was received with interest by the public, I am conscious how
much it was owing to the truth and force of the original sketch, which I
regret that I am unable to present to the public, as it was written with
much feeling and spirit.

_Bride of Lammermoor_.--The terrible catastrophe of the Bride of Lammermoor
actually occurred in a Scottish family of rank. The female relative, by
whom the melancholy tale was communicated to me many years since, was a
near connexion of the family in which the event happened, and always told
it with an appearance of melancholy mystery, which enhanced the interest.
She had known, in her youth, the brother who rode before the unhappy victim
to the fatal altar, who, though then a mere boy, and occupied almost
entirely with the gallantry of his own appearance in the bridal procession,
could not but remark that the hand of his sister was moist, and cold as
that of a statue. It is unnecessary further to withdraw the veil from this
scene of family distress, nor, although it occurred more than a hundred
years since, might it be altogether agreeable to the representatives of the
families concerned in the narrative. It may be proper to say that the
events are imitated; but I had neither the means nor intention of copying
the manners, or tracing the characters, of the persons concerned in the
real story.

_The Antiquary_.--The character of Jonathan Oldbuck, in the "Antiquary,"
was partly founded on that of an old friend of my youth, to whom I am
indebted for introducing me to Shakspeare, and other invaluable favours;
but I thought I had so completely disguised the likeness, that it could not
be recognised by any one now alive. I was mistaken, however, and indeed had
endangered what I desired should be considered as a secret; for I
afterwards learned that a highly respectable gentleman, one of the few
surviving friends of my father, and an acute critic, had said, upon the
appearance of the work, that he was now convin