Chronicles of the Canongate | Page 6

place on the
highroad near Lockerby, where he was found exhausted and expiring.
The white pony, the companion of his pilgrimage, was standing by the
side of its dying master the whole furnishing a scene not unfitted for
the pencil. These particulars I had from Mr. Train.
Another debt, which I pay most willingly, I owe to an unknown
correspondent (a lady), [The late Mrs. Goldie.] who favoured me with
the history of the upright and high-principled female, whom, in the
Heart of Mid-Lothian, I have termed Jeanie Deans. The circumstance
of her refusing to save her sister's life by an act of perjury, and
undertaking a pilgrimage to London to obtain her pardon, are both
represented as true by my fair and obliging correspondent; and they led
me to consider the possibility of rendering a fictitious personage
interesting by mere dignity of mind and rectitude of principle, assisted
by unpretending good sense and temper, without any of the beauty,
grace, talent, accomplishment, and wit to which a heroine of romance is
supposed to have a prescriptive right. If the portrait was received with
interest by the public, I am conscious how much it was owing to the
truth and force of the original sketch, which I regret that I am unable to
present to the public, as it was written with much feeling and spirit.
Old and odd books, and a considerable collection of family legends,
formed another quarry, so ample that it was much more likely that the
strength of the labourer should be exhausted than that materials should
fail. I may mention, for example's sake, that the terrible catastrophe of
the Bride of Lammermoor actually occurred in a Scottish family of
rank. The female relative, by whom the melancholy tale was
communicated to me many years since, was a near connection of the
family in which the event happened, and always told it with an
appearance of melancholy mystery which enhanced the interest. She
had known in her youth the brother who rode before the unhappy
victim to the fatal altar, who, though then a mere boy, and occupied

almost entirely with the gaiety of his own appearance in the bridal
procession, could not but remark that the hand of his sister was moist,
and cold as that of a statue. It is unnecessary further to withdraw the
veil from this scene of family distress, nor, although it occurred more
than a hundred years since, might it be altogether agreeable to the
representatives of the families concerned in the narrative. It may be
proper to say that the events alone are imitated; but I had neither the
means nor intention of copying the manners, or tracing the characters,
of the persons concerned in the real story. Indeed, I may here state
generally that, although I have deemed historical personages free
subjects of delineation, I have never on any occasion violated the
respect due to private life. It was indeed impossible that traits proper to
persons, both living and dead, with whom I have had intercourse in
society, should not have risen to my pen in such works as Waverley,
and those which followed it. But I have always studied to generalize
the portraits, so that they should still seem, on the whole, the
productions of fancy, though possessing some resemblance to real
individuals. Yet I must own my attempts have not in this last particular
been uniformly successful. There are men whose characters are so
peculiarly marked, that the delineation of some leading and principal
feature inevitably places the whole person before you in his
individuality. Thus, the character of Jonathan Oldbuck, in the
Antiquary, was partly founded on that of an old friend of my youth, to
whom I am indebted for introducing me to Shakespeare, and other
invaluable favours; but I thought I had so completely disguised the
likeness that his features could not be recognized by any one now alive.
I was mistaken, however, and indeed had endangered what I desired
should be considered as a secret; for I afterwards learned that a
highly-respectable gentleman, one of the few surviving friends of my
father, and an acute critic, [James Chalmers, Esq., Solicitor at Law,
London, who (died during the publication of the present edition of
these Novels. (Aug. 1831.)] had said, upon the appearance of the work,
that he was now convinced who was the author of it, as he recognized
in the Antiquary of Monkbarns traces of the character of a very
intimate friend of my father's family.
I may here also notice that the sort of exchange of gallantry which is
represented as taking place betwixt the Baron of Bradwardine and

Colonel Talbot, is a literal fact. The real circumstances of the anecdote,
alike honourable to Whig and Tory, are these:--
Alexander Stewart of