logic something like Falstaff's, that when war was at hand, although it were shame to be on any side but one, it were worse shame to be idle than to be on the worst side, though blacker than usurpation could make it. As for Aunt Rachel, her scheme had not exactly terminated according to her wishes, but she was under the necessity of submitting to circumstances; and her mortification was diverted by the employment she found in fitting out her nephew for the campaign, and greatly consoled by the prospect of beholding him blaze in complete uniform.

Edward Waverley himself received with animated and undefined surprise this most unexpected intelligence. It was, as a fine old poem expresses it, "like a fire to heather set," that covers a solitary hill with smoke, and illumines it at the same time with dusky fire. His tutor, or, I should say, Mr. Pembroke, for he scarce assumed the name of tutor, picked up about Edward's room some fragments of irregular verse, which he appeared to have composed under the influence of the agitating feelings occasioned by this sudden page being turned up to him in the book of life. The doctor, who was a believer in all poetry which was composed by his friends, and written out in fair straight lines, with a capital at the beginning of each, communicated this treasure to Aunt Rachel, who, with her spectacles dimmed with tears, transferred them to her commonplace book, among choice receipts for cookery and medicine, favourite texts, and portions from High-church divines, and a few songs, amatory and jacobitical, which she had caroll'd in her younger days, from whence her nephew's poetical tentamina were extracted, when the volume itself, with other authentic records of the Waverley family, were exposed to the inspection of the unworthy editor of this memorable history. If they afford the reader no higher amusement, they will serve, at least, better than narrative of any kind, to acquaint him with the wit and irregular spirit of our hero :

Late, when the Autumn evening fell
On Mirkwood-Mere's romantic dell,
The lake return'd, in chasten'd gleam,
The purple cloud, the golden beam :
Reflected in the crystal pool,
Headland and bank lay fair and cool;
The weather-tinted rock and tower,
Each drooping tree, each fairy flower,
So true, so soft, the mirror gave,
As if there lay beneath the wave,
Secure from trouble, toil, and care,
A world than earthly world more fair.
But distant winds began to wake,
And roused the Genius of the Lake!
He heard the groaning of the oak,

And donn'd at once his sable cloak,
As warrior, at the battle-cry,
Invests him with his panoply :

Then as the whirlwind nearer press'd,
He 'gan to shake his foamy crest

O'erfurrow'd brow and blacken'd cheek,
And bade his surge in thunder speak.
In wild and broken eddies whirl'd,
Flitted that fond ideal world,

And to the shore in tumult tost,
The realms of fairy bliss were lost.

Yet, with a stern delight and strange,

I saw the spirit-stirring change.

As warr'd the wind with wave and wood,
Upon the ruin'd tower I stood,

And felt my heart more strongly bound,
Responsive to the lofty sound,
While, joying in the mighty roar,
I mourn'd that tranquil scene no more.
So, on the idle dreams of youth,
Breaks the loud trumpet-call of truth,
Bids each fair vision pass away,
Like landscape on the lake that lay,
As fair, as flitting, and as frail,

As that which fled the Autumn gale

For ever dead to fancy's eye

Be each gay form that glided by,

While dreams of love and lady's charms

Give place to honour and to arms!

In sober prose, as perhaps these verses intimate less decidedly, the transient idea of Miss Cecilia Stubbs passed from Captain Waverley's heart amid the turmoil which his new destinies excited. She appeared, indeed, in full splendour in her father's pew upon the Sunday, when he attended service for the last time at the old parish church, upon which occasion, at the request of his uncle and Aunt Rachel, he was induced (nothing loth, if the truth must be told) to present himself in full uniform.

There is no better antidote against entertaining too high an opinion of others, than having an excellent one of ourselves at the very same time. Miss Stubbs had indeed summoned up every assistance which art could afford to beauty; but, alas! hoop, patches, frizzled locks, and a new mantua of genuine French silk, were lost upon a young officer of dragoons, who wore, for the first time, his goldlaced hat, jack-boots, and broadsword. I know not whether, like the champion of an old ballad,

His heart was all on honour bent,

He could not stoop to love;

No lady in the land had power
His frozen heart to move;

or whether the deep and flaming bars of embroidered gold, which now fenced his breast, defied the artillery of Cecilia's eyes; but every arrow was launched at him in vain.

Yet did I mark where Cupid's shaft did light;

It lighted not on little western flower,

But on bold yeoman, flower of all the west,

Hight Jonas Bulbertfield, the steward's son.

Craving pardon for my heroics, (which I am unable in certain cases to resist giving way to,) it is a melancholy fact, that my bistory must here take leave of the fair Cecilia, who, like many a daughter of Eve, after the departure of Edward, and the dissipation of certain idle visions which she had adopted, quietly contented herself with a pis-aller, and gave her hand, at the distance of six months, to the aforesaid Jonas, son of the baronet's steward, and heir (no unfertile prospect) to a steward's fortune; besides the snug probability of succeeding to his father's office. All these advantages moved Squire Stubbs, as much as the ruddy brow and manly form of the suitor influenced his daughter, to abate somewhat in the article of their gentry; and so the match was concluded. None seemed more gratified than Aunt Rachel, who had hitherto looked rather askance upon the presumptuous damsel, (as much so, peradventure, as her nature would permit,) but who, on the first appearance of the new-married pair at church, honoured the bride with a smile and a profound courtesy, in presence of the rector, the curate, the clerk, and the whole congregation of the united parishes of the Waverley cum Beverley.

I beg pardon, once and for all, of those readers who take up novels merely for amusement, for plaguing them so long with old-fashioned politics, and Whig and Tory, and Hanoverians and Jacobites. The truth is, I cannot promise them that this story shall be intelligible, not to say probable, without it. My plan requires that I should explain the motives on which its action proceeded, and these motives necessarily arose from the feelings, prejudices, and parties, of the times. I do not invite my fair readers, whose sex and impatience give them the greatest right to complain of these circumstances, into a flying chariot drawn by hippogriffs, or moved by enchantment. Mine is a humble English post-chaise, drawn upon four wheels, and keeping his majesty's highway. Such as dislike the vehicle may leave it at the next halt, and wait for the conveyance of prince Hussein's tapestry, or Malek the Weaver's flying sentry-box. Those who are contented to remain with me will be occasionally exposed to the dulness inseparable from heavy roads, steep hills, sloughs, and other terrestrial retardations; but, with tolerable horses and a civil driver, (as the advertisements have it,) I engage to

get as soon as possible into a more picturesque and romantic country, if my passengers incline to have some patience with me during my first stages.

CHAPTER VI.

THE ADIEUS OF WAVERLEY.

IT was upon the evening of this memorable Sunday that Sir Everard entered the library, where he narrowly missed surprising our young hero as he went through the guards of the broadsword with the ancient weapon of old Sir Hildebrand, which, being preserved as an heir-loom, usually hung over the chimney in the library, beneath a picture of the knight and his horse, where the features were almost entirely hidden by the knight's profusion of curled hair, and the Bucephalus which he bestrode concealed by the voluminous robes of the Bath, with which he was decorated. Sir Everard entered, and, after a glance at the picture and another at his nephew, began a little speech, which, however, soon dropt into the natural simplicity of his common manner, agitated upon the present occasion by no common feeling. "Nephew," he said; and then, as mending his phrase, "My dear Edward, it is God's will, and also the will of your father, whom, under God, it is your duty to obey, that you should leave us to take up the profession of arms, in which so many of your ancestors have been distinguished. I have made such arrangements as will enable you to take the field as their descendant, and as the probable heir of the house of Waverley; and, sir, in the field of battle you will remember what name you bear. And, Edward, my dear boy, remember also that you are the last of that race, and the only hope of its revival depends upon you; therefore, as far as duty and honour will permit, avoid danger-I mean unnecessary danger-and keep no company with rakes, gamblers, and Whigs, of whom, it is to be feared, there are but too many in the service into which you are going. Your colonel, as I am informed, is an excellent man-for a Presbyterian; but you will remember your duty to God, the Church of England, and the❞——(this breach ought to have been supplied, according to the rubrick, with the word king; but as, unfortunately, that word conveyed a double and embarrassing sense, one meaning de facto, and the other de jure, the knight filled up the blank otherwise)" the Church of England, and all constituted authorities." Then, not trusting himself with

'These Introductory Chapters have been a good deal censured as tedious and unnecessary. Yet there are circumstances recorded in them which the author has not been able to persuade himself to retract or cancel.

any further oratory, he carried his nephew to his stables to see the horses destined for his campaign. Two were black, (the regimental colour,) superb chargers both; the other three were stout active hacks, designed for the road, or for his domestics, of whom two were to attend him from the Hall; an additional groom, if necessary, might be picked up in Scotland.

"You will depart with but a small retinue," quoth the Baronet, 'compared to Sir Hildebrand, when he mustered before the gate of the Hall a larger body of horse than your whole regiment consists of. I could have wished that these twenty young fellows from my estate, who have enlisted in your troop, had been to march with you on your journey to Scotland. It would have been something, at least; but I am told their attendance would be thought unusual in these days, when every new and foolish fashion is introduced to break the natural dependence of the people upon their landlords."

Sir Everard had done his best to correct this unnatural disposition of the times; for he had brightened the chain of attachment between the recruits and their young captain, not only by a copious repast of beef and ale, by way of parting feast, but by such a pecuniary donation to each individual, as tended rather to improve the conviviality than the discipline of their march. After inspecting the cavalry, Sir Everard again conducted his nephew to the library, where he produced a letter, carefully folded, surrounded by a little stripe of flox-silk, according to ancient form, and sealed with an accurate impression of the Waverley coat-of-arms. It was addressed, with great formality, "To Cosmo Comyne Bradwardine, Esq. of Bradwardine, at his principal mansion of Tully-Veolan, in Perthshire, North Britain. These-By the hands of Captain Edward Waverley, nephew of Sir Everard Waverley, of Waverley-Honour, Bart."

The gentleman to whom this enormous greeting was addressed, of whom we shall have more to say in the sequel, had been in arms for the exiled family of Stewart in the year 1715, and was made prisoner at Preston in Lancashire. He was of a very ancient family, and somewhat embarrassed fortune; a scholar, according to the scholarship of Scotchmen, that is, his learning was more diffuse than accurate, and he was rather a reader than a grammarian. Of his zeal for the classic authors he is said to have given an uncommon instance. On the road between Preston and London he made his escape from his guards; but being afterwards found loitering near the place where they had lodged the former night, he was recognised, and again arrested. His companions, and even his escort, were surprised at his infatuation, and could not help inquiring, why, being once at liberty, he had not made the best of his way to a place of safety; to which he replied, that he had intended to do so, but, in good faith, he had returned to seek his Titus Livius, which he