PHAROS LOQUITUR Page · 355 This is a piece of six lines printed in Stevenson's ac- VERSES SUNG AT A DINNER IN HONOUR OF THE CZAR OF These were composed to be sung after a dinner given by the Lord Provost of Edinburgh to the Grand Duke (afterwards Emperor) Nicholas of Russia and his suite, December 19, 1816. They were adapted to Haydn's air, "God Save the Emperor Francis." The verses are taken from the newspapers of 1816. OLD MORTALITY. I-138. • 365 2 vols. (1816) Nov. ix., 219–374; x. and xi. This was the companion novel to "The Black Dwarf" in the First Series of the "Tales of My Landlord." "Robert Paterson" (1715-1801) “was a real "personage, and received the name of 'Old Mortality' from having devoted his "life to the renovation of the gravestones of the martyrs of the Covenant." He was born in 1715, and gradually became crazed with Cameronianism, neglected the commonest prudential duty of providing for his offspring, and wandered about cleaning moss from gravestones and keeping the letters and effigies on them in good condition. His wife and children were wholly unable to disengage him from this course of living, and he continued it till his death in 1801, in the eighty-sixth year of his age. One of his sons came to America in 1776 and settled at Baltimore. In 1869 Messrs. A. & C. Black caused a headstone of freestone to be erected in Carlaverock Churchyard to the old man's memory. Among the characters in the tale should be studied John Burley (or John Balfour, of Kinlock), the leader of the insurgent Covenanters and murderer of Archbishop Sharp, who "gave a scriptural justification for "all his crimes." His death, as told in "Old Mortality," is fictitious. He really escaped to Holland. Peter Poundtext well illustrates the class of preachers whose services caused a considerable schism among the Presbyterians. He was, moreover, an aged pastor, for whom warfare had few charms, "in comparison with a theological "treatise, a pipe, and a jug of ale, which he called his studies." Among the historical characters of this work are the Duke of Monmouth, the natural son of Charles II., and James Grahame, of Claverhouse, whose character, Scott maintained, had been foully traduced, for "he, who was every inch a soldier “and a gentleman, passed among the Scottish vulgar for a ruffian desperado, "who rode a goblin horse, was proof against shot, and in league with the "Devil." This novel was translated into Italian under the title of "The "Scottish Puritans." The period of the story is about 1679-90, in the reigns of Charles II., James II., and of William and Mary. OMEN, THE. BY GALT, JOHN. (1824). See Galt. Pr. xviii. 333 PAUL'S LETTERS TO HIS KINSFOLK. (1816) . These were mostly written during Sir W. Scott's tour on the Continent in 1815, directly after the battle of Waterloo. They are, in fact, "a genuine frag"ment of the author's autobiography." The letters are addressed to four imaginary persons who have, however, been easily identified. The spinster, Sister Margaret, is "only a slender disguise for the author's Aunt Christian “Rutherfurd.” The veteran officer, the Major on half pay, is his elder brother, John Scott. The Laird —, is Lord Somerville, long president of the Board of Agriculture, and the minister of the gospel at is Doctor Douglas, of Galashiels. Many of the letters were printed from the identical sheets that reached Melrose through the post. Letter viii. (pp. 99-145) describes the battle of Waterloo in detail. Esq., of Three editions of 6000, 1500, and 1500 copies were disposed of in the course of two or three years. PEPYS, SAMUEL (1632-1703), MEMOIRS OF. BY BRAYBROOKE, RICH- This review appeared in the Quarterly for January, 1826. The Diary was written in cipher and lay for one hundred and fifty years in the Pepysian Library bequeathed by the diarist to Magdalen College, Cambridge, England, before the stenographic characters were deciphered. The Diary comprises the first ten years of Mr. Pepys's official life, extending from January, 1659–60, to May, 1669. The revelation of gossip, scandal, anecdote, art, and life as it really was in the time of Charles II. was a real "discovery," and the popularity of this, the first or second best of all "Diaries," will probably stand undiminished for centuries. At page 149, Sir W. Scott gives a capital outline of the literary "find" of anecdotes, jests, notices of old songs and ballads, and anecdotes of Lely, Faithorne, Holbein, Oliver Cromwell, and Tom Killigrew, with which the "Memoirs" abound. The description of "a run upon Lombard Street in the days of Charles II.," quoted at page 150, seemed to strike the reviewer with much amusement. Pr. xviii. [PERSUASION. BY AUSTEN, JANE. (1821) 209 See Austen. The review was written by Archbishop Whately, and not by Sir W. Scott.] PEVERIL OF THE PEAK. 3 vols. (1823) Nov. xxviii., xxix., and xxx. The novel relates to the period of the pretended Popish Plot, about 1660, in the reign of Charles II. In it we are introduced to Colonel Blood, the second Duke of Buckingham, Charles II. and Catherine his Consort, Tom Chiffinch, the well-known minister to Charles's pleasures; the Countess of Derby, who defended Lathom House against the Roundheads and was Queen of the Isle of Man; Edward Christian, whose brother had been executed by the Countess of Derby for a political offence; Sir Geoffrey Hudson, the dwarf; Dr. Oates, the discoverer of the pretended Popish Plot, the Duke of Ormond, and Lord Chief Justice Scroggs. These historical characters, with the pretended deaf and dumb attendant, Fenella, and a host of other characters, rather overcrowded the author's canvas. The peculiar laws and state of the Isle of Man are well brought out. The character of Fenella (or Zarah), the daughter of Edward Christian ("a mere creature of the imagination"), a pretended deaf and dumb fairy-like attendant on the Countess of Derby, was suggested by that of Mignon, the Italian girl, in Goethe's "Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship." PIRATE, THE. 2 vols. (1821) Nov. xxiv. and xxv. The scene of this romance is placed in the Orkney Islands, about the year 1700, in the time of William III. or Queen Anne. The tale is founded on the story of a pirate, named John Gow or Goffe or Smith, who frequented Stromness in 1724-25, and obtained the troth-plight of a young lady of some property only a short time before he was unmasked and, after torture, executed for his many crimes. The wild scenery of the Shetlands is well described. Interesting peeps are given through the old "Udaller," Magnus Troil, and his fair daughters, Minna and Brenda, into the primitive customs of a remarkable place. A "Udaller" is one who holds lands allodially—that is, free from rent or service-tenure,-in other words, he is a freeholder. PITCAIRN, ROBERT (1793-1855): CRIMINAL TRIALS IN SCOTLAND FROM 1484 TO 1684. (1831) Pr. xxi. 199 This article appeared in the Quarterly for February, 1831. The work, in ten parts, bound in four quarto volumes, was published under the auspices of the Bannatyne Club, at Edinburgh, of which Sir W. Scott was the founder and first president. This is "the last piece of criticism that came from the "pen of Sir W. Scott." The opening of this interesting review (pp. 199–225) gives a delightful account of the rise of book clubs and the doings of such giants among book collectors as the Duke of Roxburghe and the Earl of Spencer. He relates in detail the history of the sale of "Paradise Lost" for £5 and the subsequent sale of all rights by the bookseller, who was at that time £20 out of pocket, for £25, with many stories of great interest to bibliophiles relating to books, and the Roxburghe, Maitland, and Bannatyne Clubs. PLANTER'S GUIDE, THE. BY STEUART, SIR HENRY. (1828) Pr. xxi. 77. See Steuart. [PONTEFRACT Castle. BY THE AUTHOR OF WAVERLEY. This was a forgery (see “Count Robert of Paris”), and is here mentioned simply as a fact of interest in connection with Sir W. Scott's literary career.] Po. i. 5-91 POPULAR POETRY, ESSAY ON. 66 (1830) This is an introduction to “ Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border," and “in a cursory manner" goes through the history of English and Scottish poetry. It notices the principal collections which had from time to time been formed of such compositions. "These remarks were first appended to the edition "of 1830." It has eight appendixes. PROSE WORKS, THE. PROVINCIAL ANTIQUITIES OF SCOTLAND. (1818) xi.−xc. Pr. vii. 155 These are a series of "topographical and historical essays which originally "appeared in the successive numbers of the splendidly illustrated work called "Provincial Antiquities of Scotland.'" Scott refused to accept payment for these articles, but when the success of the work was assured, "accepted "from the proprietors some of the beautiful drawings by J. M. W. Turner, "Rev. J. Thomson Callcott, Nasmyth, and other artists which had been pre"pared to accompany his text." The drawings were placed in the little breakfast room at Abbotsford. The subjects of these essays are: EDINBURGH, HERIOT'S HOSPITAL FROM THE WEST BOW. 261 Sir W. Scott undertook for Messrs. Murray to arrange for publication some posthumous productions of Mr. John Strutt, of "Horda Angel Cynnan" fame, and finding among that author's papers an unfinished romance entitled "Queen-hoo Hall," Scott undertook to supply "such a hasty" conclusion "as could be shaped out from the story of which Mr. Strutt had laid the "foundation." Chapters iv. and v. by the author of "Waverley" are here given. Queen-hoo Hall" "was not very successful." 66 QUENTIN DURWARD. 2 vols. (1823). Nov. xxxi. and xxxii. The story is laid at Plessis les Tours, and relates to Louis XI. of France and Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, about the year 1470, in the time of Edward IV. of England. When first published it created as great a sensation in France as "Waver"ley" had done on its first appearance in England. It is one of Scott's most interesting tales, and the general appreciation has been much enhanced by the stage versions of the character of Louis XI., which proved so masterly in the hands of Charles Kean and his successor in the character, Sir Henry Irving. Among the historical personages introduced are John, Cardinal Balue; Charles the Bold; Lord Crawford, the captain of the Archers of the Scottish Guard; De la Marck, the Wild Boar of Ardennes; Philip de Comines; Princess Joan; Prince Louis of Bourbon; the Bishop of Liége; the Dauphin, afterwards Louis XII., whose miserable chamber in Plessis is still shown; Galeotti, the astrologer; and Louis XI. himself, with his strange surroundings, Oliver, the barber, and Tristan l'Hermite, the hangman. Some of the oubliettes so graphically described by Sir W. Scott, and |