by Walter Scott
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY
The title of this work has not been chosen without the grave andsolid deliberation which matters of importance demand from theprudent. Even its first, or general denomination, was the resultof no common research or selection, although, according to theexample of my predecessors, I had only to seize upon the mostsounding and euphonic surname that English history or topographyaffords, and elect it at once as the title of my work and the nameof my hero. But, alas! what could my readers have expected fromthe chivalrous epithets of Howard, Mordaunt, Mortimer, or Stanley,or from the softer and more sentimental sounds of Belmour,Belville, Belfield, and Belgrave, but pages of inanity, similar tothose which have been so christened for half a century past? Imust modestly admit I am too diffident of my own merit to place itin unnecessary opposition to preconceived associations; I have,therefore, like a maiden knight with his white shield, assumed formy hero, WAVERLEY, an uncontaminated name, bearing with its soundlittle of good or evil, excepting what the reader shall hereafterbe pleased to affix to it. But my second or supplemental title wasa matter of much more difficult election, since that, short as itis, may be held as pledging the author to some special mode oflaying his scene, drawing his characters, and managing hisadventures. Had I, for example, announced in my frontispiece,'Waverley, a Tale of other Days,' must not every novel-reader haveanticipated a castle scarce less than that of Udolpho, of whichthe eastern wing had long been uninhabited, and the keys eitherlost, or consigned to the care of some aged butler or housekeeper,whose trembling steps, about the middle of the second volume, weredoomed to guide the hero, or heroine, to the ruinous precincts?Would not the owl have shrieked and the cricket cried in my verytitle-page? and could it have been possible for me, with amoderate attention to decorum, to introduce any scene more livelythan might be produced by the jocularity of a clownish butfaithful valet, or the garrulous narrative of the heroine's fille-de-chambre, when rehearsing the stories of blood and horror whichshe had heard in the servants' hall? Again, had my title borne,'Waverley, a Romance from the German,' what head so obtuse as notto image forth a profligate abbot, an oppressive duke, a secretand mysterious association of Rosycrucians and Illuminati, withall their properties of black cowls, caverns, daggers, electricalmachines, trap-doors, and dark-lanterns? Or if I had rather chosento call my work a 'Sentimental Tale,' would it not have been asufficient presage of a heroine with a profusion of auburn hair,and a harp, the soft solace of her solitary hours, which shefortunately finds always the means of transporting from castle tocottage, although she herself be sometimes obliged to jump out ofa two-pair-of-stairs window, and is more than once bewildered onher journey, alone and on foot, without any guide but a blowzypeasant girl, whose jargon she hardly can understand? Or, again,if my Waverley had been entitled 'A Tale of the Times,' wouldstthou not, gentle reader, have demanded from me a dashing sketch ofthe fashionable world, a few anecdotes of private scandal thinlyveiled, and if lusciously painted, so much the better? a heroinefrom Grosvenor Square, and a hero from the Barouche Club or theFour-in-Hand, with a set of subordinate characters from theelegantes of Queen Anne Street East, or the dashing heroes of theBow-Street Office? I could proceed in proving the importance of atitle-page, and displaying at the same time my own intimateknowledge of the particular ingredients necessary to thecomposition of romances and novels of various descriptions;--butit is enough, and I scorn to tyrannise longer over the impatienceof my reader, who is doubtless already anxious to know the choicemade by an author so profoundly versed in the different branchesof his art.
By fixing, then, the date of my story Sixty Years before thispresent 1st November, 1805, I would have my readers understand,that they will meet in the following pages neither a romance ofchivalry nor a tale of modern manners; that my hero will neitherhave iron on his. shoulders, as of yore, nor on the heels of hisboots, as is the present fashion of Bond Street; and that mydamsels will neither be clothed 'in purple and in pall,' like theLady Alice of an old ballad, nor reduced to the primitivenakedness of a modern fashionable at a rout. From this my choiceof an era the understanding critic may farther presage that theobject of my tale is more a description of men than manners. Atale of manners, to be interesting, must either refer to antiquityso great as to have become venerable, or it must bear a vividreflection of those scenes which are passing daily before oureyes, and are interesting from their novelty. Thus the coat-of-mail of our ancestors, and the triple-furred pelisse of our modernbeaux, may, though for very different reasons, be equally fit forthe array of a fictitious character; but who, meaning the costumeof his hero to be impressive, would willingly attire him in thecourt dress of George the Second's reign, with its no collar,large sleeves, and low pocket-holes? The same may be urged, withequal truth, of the Gothic hall, which, with its darkened andtinted windows, its elevated and gloomy roof, and massive oakentable garnished with boar's-head and rosemary, pheasants andpeacocks, cranes and cygnets, has an excellent effect infictitious description. Much may also be gained by a livelydisplay of a modern fete, such as we have daily recorded in thatpart of a newspaper entitled the Mirror of Fashion, if we contrastthese, or either of them, with the splendid formality of anentertainment given Sixty Years Since; and thus it will be readilyseen how much the painter of antique or of fashionable mannersgains over him who delineates those of the last generation.
Considering the disadvantages inseparable from this part of mysubject, I must be understood to have resolved to avoid them asmuch as possible, by throwing the force of my narrative upon thecharacters and passions of the actors;--those passions common tomen in all stages of society, and which have alike agitated thehuman heart, whether it throbbed under the steel corslet of thefifteenth century, the brocaded coat of the eighteenth, or theblue frock and white dimity waistcoat of the present day.[Footnote: Alas' that attire, respectable and gentlemanlike in1805, or thereabouts, is now as antiquated as the Author ofWaverley has himself become since that period! The reader offashion will please to fill up the costume with an embroideredwaistcoat of purple velvet or silk, and a coat of whatever colourhe pleases.] Upon these passions it is no doubt true that thestate of manners and laws casts a necessary colouring; but thebearings, to use the language of heraldry, remain the same, thoughthe tincture may be not only different, but opposed in strongcontradistinction. The wrath of our ancestors, for example, wascoloured gules; it broke forth in acts of open and sanguinaryviolence against the objects of its fury. Our malignant feelings,which must seek gratification through more indirect channels, andundermine the obstacles which they cannot openly bear down, may berather said to be tinctured sable. But the deep-ruling impulse isthe same in both cases; and the proud peer, who can now only ruinhis neighbour according to law, by protracted suits, is thegenuine descendant of the baron who wrapped the castle of hiscompetitor in flames, and knocked him on the head as heendeavoured to escape from the conflagration. It is from the greatbook of Nature, the same through a thousand editions, whether ofblack-letter, or wire-wove and hot-pressed, that I haveventurously essayed to read a chapter to the public. Somefavourable opportunities of contrast have been afforded me by thestate of society in the northern part of the island at the periodof my history, and may serve at once to vary and to illustrate themoral lessons, which I would willingly consider as the mostimportant part of my plan; although I am sensible how short thesewill fall of their aim if I shall be found unable to mix them withamusement--a task not quite so easy in this critical generation asit was 'Sixty Years Since.'