The work would be, on the whole, improved by being translated into English.

Though we cannot, on the whole, speak of the novel with approbation, we will not affect to deny that we read it with interest, and that it repaid us with amusement." It is in reviewing "The Antiquary" that the immortal idiot of the "Quarterly" complains about "the dark dialect of Anglified Erse." Published criticism never greatly affected Scott's spirits,--probably, he very seldom read it.

He knew that the public, like Constable's friend Mrs.Stewart, were "reading 'Guy Mannering' all day, and dreaming of it all night." Indeed, it is much better to read "Guy Mannering" than to criticise it.

A book written in six weeks, a book whose whole plot and conception was changed "in the printing," must have its faults of construction.

Thus, we meet Mannering first as "a youthful lover," a wanderer at adventure, an amateur astrologer, and suddenly we lose sight of him, and only recover him as a disappointed, "disilluded," and weary, though still vigorous, veteran.