Waverley II

manners of his own country had employed the pen of the only man in Scotland who could have done it justice – of him so eminently distinguished in elegant literature, and whose sketches of Colonel Caustic and Umphraville are perfectly blended with the fi ner traits of national character. I should in that case have had more pleasure as a reader than I shall ever feel in the pride of a successful author, should these sheets confer upon me that envied distinction. And, as I have invert­ed the usual arrangement, placing these remarks at the end of the work to which they refer, I will venture on a second viola­tion of form, by closing the whole with a Dedication –