The incidents are all founded on fact, and the historical parts are related with much accuracy.

The livelier scenes which are displayed are of the most amusing species, because they flow so naturally from the personages before us that the characters, not the author, appear to speak.

A strong vein of very original humour marks the whole: in most instances it is indeed of a local and particular nature, but in many cases it assumes a more general appearance.
"Of the more serious portions we can speak with unqualified approbation; the very few pathetic scenes which occur are short, dignifed, and affecting.

The love-scenes are sufficiently contracted to produce that very uncommon sensation in the mind,--a wish that they were longer.
"The religious opinions expressed in the course of the tale are few, but of those few we fully approve.
"The humorous and happy adaptation of legal terns shows no moderate acquaintance with the arcana of the law, and a perpetual allusion to the English and Latin classics no common share of scholarship and taste." The "Scots Magazine" illustrated the admirable unanimity of reviewers when they are unanimous.

The "Anti-Jacobin" objected that no Chateau-Margaux sent in the wood from Bordeaux to Dundee in 1713 could have been drinkable in 1741.