hard on the vice of gambling,
as in "The Fortunes of Nigel." Ruinous at all times and in every shape,
gambling, in Scott's lifetime, during the Regency, had crippled or
destroyed many an historical Scottish family. With this in his mind he
drew the portrait of Mowbray of St. Ronan's. His picture of duelling is
not more seductive; he himself had lost his friend, Sir Alexander
Boswell, in a duel; on other occasions this institution had brought
discomfort into his life, and though he was ready to fight General
Gourgaud with Napoleon's pistols, he cannot have approved of the
practices of the MacTurks and Bingo Binkses. A maniac, as his
correspondence shows, challenged Sir Walter, insisting that he was
pointed at and ridiculed in the character of MacTurk. (Abbotsford MSS.)
It is interesting to have the picture of contemporary manners from
Scott's hand--Meg Dods remains among his immortal portraits; but a novel
in which the absurd will of fiction and the conventional Nabob are
necessary machinery can never be ranked so high as even "The Monastery"
and "Peveril." In Scotland, however, it was infinitely more successful
than its admirable successor "Redgauntlet."

ANDREW LANG.
_December 1893._

INTRODUCTION

TO

ST. RONAN'S WELL.

The novel which follows is upon a plan different from any other that the
author has ever written, although it is perhaps the most legitimate
which relates to this kind of light literature.

It is intended, in a word--_celebrare domestica facta_--to give an
imitation of the shifting manners of our own time, and paint scenes, the
originals of which are daily passing round us, so that a minute's
observation may compare the copies with the originals. It must be
confessed that this style of composition was adopted by the author
rather from the tempting circumstance of its offering some novelty in
his compositions, and avoiding worn-out characters and positions, than
from the hope of rivalling the many formidable competitors who have
already won deserved honours in this department. The ladies, in
particular, gifted by nature with keen powers of observation and light
satire, have been so distinguished by these works of talent, that,
reckoning from the authoress of Evelina to her of Marriage, a catalogue
might be made, including the brilliant and talented names of Edgeworth,
Austin, Charlotte Smith, and others, whose success seems to have
appropriated this province of the novel as exclusively