A fiction of middle-class life did not allure him, and he was not at the best, but at his worst, as Sydney Smith observed, in the light talk of society.

He could admire Miss Austen, and read her novels again and again; but had he attempted to follow her, by way of variety, then inevitably wild as well as disciplined humour would have kept breaking in, and his fancy would have wandered like the old knights of Arthur's Court, "at adventure." "St.Ronan's Well" proved the truth of all this.

Thus it happens that, in "The Antiquary," with all his sympathy for the people, with all his knowledge of them, he does not confine himself to their cottages.

As Lockhart says, in his admirable piece of criticism, he preferred to choose topics in which he could display "his highest art, that of skilful contrast." Even the tragic romance of "Waverley" does not set off its Macwheebles and Callum Begs better than the oddities of Jonathan Oldbuck and his circle are relieved, on the one hand by the stately gloom of the Glenallans, on the other by the stern affliction of the poor fisherman, who, when discovered repairing "the auld black bitch of a boat," in which his boy had been lost, and congratulated by his visitors on being capable of the exertion, makes answer, "And what would you have me to do, unless I wanted to see four children starve, because one is drowned?
It 's weel with you gentles, that can sit in the house with handkerchers at your een, when ye lose a friend; but the like o' us maun to our work again, if our hearts were beating as hard as ony hammer." And to his work again Scott had to go when he lost the partner of his life.
The simple unsought charm which Lockhart notes in "The Antiquary" may have passed away in later works, when what had been the amusement of happy days became the task of sadness.

But this magic "The Antiquary" keeps perhaps beyond all its companions,--the magic of pleasant memories and friendly associations.