THE LORD OF THE ISLES BY SIR WALTER SCOTT, BART. WITH NOTES AND ANALYTICAL AND EXPLANATORY INDEX EDINBURGH 280. n. 374. PREFATORY NOTE. THE author of ceterised bis of nius, acquiesced in the judg "HE author of "The Lord of the Isles," with the modesty ment of his contemporary critics and readers so far, as to give some reasons to account for, if not to excuse, what was considered a falling off from his own standard of excellence. He assigned two causes for its comparatively unfavourable reception: first, that the subject was one about which his countrymen were too enthusiastic for the writer; and second, the depression on his own spirit, caused by the death of the esteemed lady to whom he purposed to inscribe it; and whose friendship he so touchingly commemorates in the Conclusion. To the first it might be objected that the poem excited no greater interest in England, where enthusiasm on the subject might be supposed to be sufficiently temperate, were it not obvious that it is one to which Englishmen might be excused from being over partial, especially before the author's own writings imbued Scottish subjects with that attractiveness which now draws pilgrims from all parts of the world to our shores. The second is one whose effects it were vain to estimate. But now, when the author's sublime apostrophe"Stranger! if e'er thine ardent step hath traced The northern realms of ancient Caledon, Where the proud Queen of Wilderness hath placed, is only applicable in a retrospective sense, and when Scotchmen themselves take more just if less exaggerated views of their country's history, readers may be said to be nearer the |