Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1820 edition. Excerpt: ... FBOM CAPTAIN CLUTTERBUCK, OF HIS MAJESTY'S REGIMENT OF INFANTRY, TO THE AUTHOR OF "WAVERLEY." SIR, Although I do not pretend to the pleasure of your personal acquaintance, like many who I believe to be equally strangers to you, I am nevertheless interested in your publications, and desire their continuance;--not that I pretend to much taste in fictitious composition, or that I am apt to be interested in your grave scenes, or amused by those which are meant to be lively. I will not disguise from you, that I have yawned over the last interview of Mac Ivor and his sister, and fell fairly asleep while the schoolmaster was reading the humours of Dandie Dinmont. You see, sir, that I scorn to solicit your favour in a way to which you are no stranger. If the papers I enclose you are worth nothing, I will not endeavour to recommend them by personal flattery, as a bad cook pours rancid butter upon stale fish. No, sir! What I respect in you, is the light you have occasionally thrown on national antiquities, a study which I have commenced rather late in life, but to which I am attached with the devotion of a first love, because it is the only study I ever cared a farthing for. You shall have my history, sir, (it will not reach to three volumes, ) before that of my manuscript; and as you usually throw out a few lines of verse (by way of skirmishers, I suppose, ) at the head of each division of prose, I have had the luck to light upon a stanza in the schoolmaster's copy of Burns, which describes me exactly. I love it the better, because it was originally designed for Captain Grose, an excellent antiquary, though, like yourself, somewhat too apt to treat with levity his own pursuits: 'Tis said he was a soldier bred, And one wad rather fa'an than fled;...