Perhaps a self-confident censor might venture a similar opinion about "Guy Mannering." It assuredly shows traces of haste; the plot wanders at its own will; and we may believe that the Author often--did not see his own way out of the wood.

But there is little harm in that.

"If I do not know what is coming next," a modern novelist has remarked, "how can the public know ?" Curiosity, at least, is likely to be excited by this happy-go-lucky manner of Scott's.

"The worst of it is;" as he wrote to Lady Abercorn about his poems (June 9,1808), "that I am not very good or patient in slow and careful composition; and sometimes I remind myself of the drunken man, who could run long after he could not walk." Scott could certainly run very well, though averse to a plodding motion.
[He was probably thinking of a famous Edinburgh character, "Singing Jamie Balfour." Jamie was found very drunk and adhering to the pavement one night.

He could not raise himself; but when helped to his feet, ran his preserver a race to the tavern, and won!] The account of the year's work which preceded "Guy Mannering" is given by Lockhart, and is astounding.