The Heart of Mid-Lothian - Penn State University

secret view to my present task), “could possibly be derived
from such a work as you are pleased to talk of?”
“Infinite,” replied the young advocate. “Whatever of
guilt, crime, imposture, folly, unheard-of misfortunes, and
unlooked-for change of fortune, can be found to chequer
life, my Last Speech of the Tolbooth should illustrate
with examples sufficient to gorge even the public’s alldevouring
appetite for the wonderful and horrible. The
inventor of fictitious narratives has to rack his brains for
means to diversify his tale, and after all can hardly hit
upon characters or incidents which have not been used
again and again, until they are familiar to the eye of the
reader, so that the development, enle’vement, the desperate
wound of which the hero never dies, the burning fever
from which the heroine is sure to recover, become a
mere matter of course. I join with my honest friend
Crabbe, and have an unlucky propensity to hope, when
hope is lost, and to rely upon the cork-jacket, which carries
the heroes of romance safe through all the billows of
affliction.” He then declaimed the following passage,
rather with too much than too little emphasis:—
Sir Walter Scott
37
Much have I feared, but am no more afraid,
When some chaste beauty by some wretch betrayed,
Is drawn away with such distracted speed,
That she anticipates a dreadful deed.
Not so do I—Let solid walls impound
The captive fair, and dig a moat around;
Let there be brazen locks and bars of steel,
And keepers cruel, such as never feel;
With not a single note the purse supply,
And when she begs, let men and maids deny;
Be windows there from which she dare not fall,
And help so distant, ’tis in vain to call;
Still means of freedom will some Power devise,
And from the baffled ruffian snatch his prize.
“The end of uncertainty,” he concluded, “is the death
of interest; and hence it happens that no one now reads
novels.”
“Hear him, ye gods!” returned his companion. “I assure
you, Mr. Pattieson, you will hardly visit this learned