England deserve no less their renown in our modern circles, than the Bruces and Wallaces of Caledonia . If the scenery of the south be less romantic and sublime than that of the northern mountains, it must be allowed to possess in the same proportion superior softness and beauty; and upon the whole, we feel ourselves entitled to exclaim with the patriotic Syrian —“Are not Pharphar and Abana, rivers of Damascus, better than all the rivers of Israel ?”
Your objections to such an attempt, my dear Doctor, were, you may remember, twofold. You insisted upon the advantages which the Scotsman possessed, from the very recent existence of that state of society in which his scene was to be laid. Many now alive, you remarked, well remembered persons who had not only seen the celebrated Roy M’Gregor, but had feasted, and even fought with him. All those minute circumstances belonging to private life and domestic character, all that gives verisimilitude to a narrative, and individuality to the persons introduced, is still known and remembered in Scotland ; whereas in