Presbyteriana" (1827), published by True Jock, chief clerk to "Leein'
Johnnie," Mr. John Ballantyne. To this work the inquirer may turn, if he
is anxious to see whether Scott's colouring is correct. The true blue of
the Covenant is not dulled in the "Biographia Presbyteriana."

With all these materials at his command, Scott was able almost to dwell
in the age of the Covenant hence the extraordinary life and brilliance of
this, his first essay in fiction dealing with a remote time and obsolete
manners. His opening, though it may seem long and uninviting to modern
readers, is interesting for the sympathetic sketch of the gentle
consumptive dominie. If there was any class of men whom Sir Walter could
not away with, it was the race of schoolmasters, "black cattle" whom he
neither trusted nor respected. But he could make or invent exceptions, as
in the uncomplaining and kindly usher of the verbose Cleishbotham. Once
launched in his legend, with the shooting of the Popinjay, he never
falters. The gallant, dauntless, overbearing Bothwell, the dour Burley,
the handful of Preachers, representing every current of opinion in the
Covenant, the awful figure of Habakkuk Mucklewrath, the charm of goodness
in Bessie McLure, are all immortal, deathless as Shakspeare's men and
women. Indeed here, even more than elsewhere, we admire the life which
Scott breathes into his minor characters, Halliday and Inglis, the
troopers, the child who leads Morton to Burley's retreat in the cave,
that auld Laird Nippy, old Milnwood (a real "Laird Nippy" was a neighbour
of Scott's at Ashiestiel), Ailie Wilson, the kind, crabbed old
housekeeper, generous in great things, though habitually niggardly in
things small. Most of these are persons whom we might still meet in
Scotland, as we might meet Cuddie Headrigg--the shrewd, the blithe, the
faithful and humorous Cuddie. As to Miss Jenny Dennison, we can hardly
forgive Scott for making that gayest of soubrettes hard and selfish in
married life. He is too severe on the harmless and even beneficent race