156° Faihionuble' Noveli:: (Ave. 
intellectual labours of the superior people, are’ remarkable and -ridicu= 
lous for this ancestral affectation. The author of those novels, palpably 
a Scotchman, adopted a course which his natural shrewdness ‘must: 
have Jaughed at; but which was an abundant source’ of his’ success’ 
The defender of the ancient honours of their country, he was hailed by 
every Scotchman as the champion of Scotland; his works became the 
primer of a:people who all write, or pretend to write; and who, write or 
not, puff each other without mercy ; and the propagation of the Scotch 
novels was magnified into a national duty. hn 
All this is no impeachment of the author’s ability; it shows his keen-— 
ness in taking advantage of circumstances which a feebler observer might’ 
have overlooked ; but it undoubtedly also shows, that his. celebrity has- 
been sustained by circumstances peculiarly fortunate. Another source 
of his success isthe singular rapidity with which his workshave been urged 
on the public ;—a rapidity yet, in some instances, overrenning thie pub- 
lic demand, and soon felt to be injurious to his emoluments. But a third’ 
source is: to be found in one of the tricks of publication, harmless, per— 
haps, in its commencement, but now urged to an extent which stains the’ 
moral reputation of the man—the denial of the authorship. There is* 
nothing more natural in a writer than’a reluctance to commit himself 
to the consequences of a disclosure of name; the bitter personality, 
under pretence of criticism, possibly the professional jury, probably the 
disrepute of an unsuccessful performance. There can be no right in 
any reader to demand the name of a writer; but, on the other hand, it 
is an obvious point of honour that this mystery shall be for the purpose 
of actual concealment, not for the beggarly object of exciting curiosity, and 
thereby promoting sale. The artifice becomes more coatemptible, if it 
be played off in all the ways that can at once induce the world to inquire, 
and, by baffling the pursuit, still keep up the inquiry. A higher reach 
of reprobatiom remains, when the author, for the purpose of producing 
the broader stare of the purchaser, voluntarily comes forward to deny 
the fact, and makes himself responsible for a direct and inexcusable 
negative. Yet, under all these charges the author of the Scotch novels, 
whoever he be, has laid himself; and we have at this moment the- 
extraordinavy sight of Sir Walter Scott, by a public letter denying that 
he is the author, and yet connected with their publishers” affairs to an 
immense amount, for which no other pretext can be found; and even 
more than this, the publisher openly exhibiting the MSS. of those novels 
as the donative of this individual. 
After such evidence, all attempt at profitable mystery is at an end; 
and it would be to the credit of the parties to abandon a paltry artifice, 
which has Jong since served its purpose, and which no ingenuity, no 
little system of hinting the truth and declaring the fiction, no humi- 
liating dexterity of the counter, can any longer render effeetive to the 
finance of the contrivers. 
The Scotch novels ran out their course at last. It must be owned; 
that, but for those contrivances of sharp-witted, if not of very dignified 
knowledge of trade, they would have seen the close of their career long 
before. The perpettal monotony of the characters, the eternal Meg 
Merrilies, the dwarf, the wandering beggar, the romping heroine, and 
the nincompoop hero, had drained the public patience. No variety of 
adventure could reconcile the reader to this endless recurrence’ of high 
cheek-bones ; and while every man might predict every character in 
