BY SIR WALTER SCOTT, BART. For why? Because the good old rule That they should take who have the power, Rob Roy's Grave: WORDSWORTH. COMPLETE, WITH NOTES AND GLOSSARY BY D. H. M. BOSTON: GINN AND COMPANY. 1894. HARVARD Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1886, by GINN AND COMPANY, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. J. S. CUSHING & Co., PRINTERS, BOSTON. INTRODUCTION. BY CHARLOTTE M. YONGE. OB ROY, the fourth of the Waverley series, was ROB very popular when it first appeared. The memory of the hero had hardly died out in Scotland; and, to English readers, Diana Vernon was an entirely new type of character, and caught the general fancy, so that there have been numerous inferior imitations. The humor of the portraits of the priggish, conceited Andrew Fairservice, and the excellent but intensely prosaic Baillie Nicol Jarvie could not but be highly esteemed; and the general appreciation of them was enhanced by the excellent manner in which they were put on the stage by Mr. Daniel Terry, or, as the original author termed it, they were terryfied. These two figures, with the lifelike portrait of Rob Roy himself, fully deserve all the prominence they receive. The dense barbarism of the family at Osbaldistone Hall has made them almost a proverb. Probably the representation really does not exceed the ignorance and rudeness that prevailed in remote country seats, especially where political opinions debarred the sons from going out into the world in any liberal profession; and there is ample evidence that in the 18th century hard drinking was by no means esteemed a disgrace; but that moderation- not to say abstinence - was viewed as effeminate. Rashleigh Osbaldistone is certainly the most repulsive villain Scott ever invented; far worse than Varney, who is at least faithful to his master, or even than Glossin. Since Rashleigh is a doubledyed traitor to both sides, full of fiendish malice. To play a double game had unhappily become only too common ever since the Revolution of 1688. No one could guess which party would finally triumph, and the foremost statesmen kept up a correspondence with the exiled Stuarts, so as to have a resource in case of their return. Throughout the reign of William of Orange all was very doubtful. His skill and ability were undoubted; but the might of Louis XIV. of France, the constant friend of his Stuart cousins, was as yet unbroken, and the son of James II. was as yet too young to have shown what a helpless, impracticable being he was; while the death of the son of the Princess Anne drove the supporters of the Protestant succession to seek an heir in an undistinguished province of Germany, in a second cousin of the reigning family scarcely heard of before. Matters were in abeyance throughout the reign of Queen Anne, while there was a career of brilliant victories going on abroad, and expectations were entertained by all the Jacobite party that she would bequeath her crown to her half-brother. The nation might have disputed her power to do so, but many individuals would have felt themselves thus fully justified in rising on his behalf. Her sudden death, at the very time that a Whig ministry had come in, prevented this. Moreover, Louis XIV. was in extreme old age, and had been so crushed by the victories of Marlborough as to have been forced to make peace at the expense of abandoning the cause of the Stuarts; while the British army had shown itself the most successful in Europe. On the other hand, the union of England and Scotland, by which the northern kingdom ceased to have a separate parliament and government, had offended the national vanity, and the disadvantages of Edinburgh ceasing to be a seat of government, with the overthrow of many offices, occasioned much discontent, and a rekindling of the smouldering flame of dislike and jealousy of England. If the miseries of the Covenanters were remembered against the Stuarts, the oppression of the non-juring Episcopal Church was fresher in the minds of its members. However, everybody waited. The Elector of Hanover, who was far past his first youth, had no desire to encumber himself with a kingdom whose language and habits he scarcely knew, and much preferred the routine of his petty German principality; so he waited to see whether the English really were bent on making him their king, before he attempted to embroil himself with their affairs. Young James Edward Stuart, the "Old Pretender," waited on his side for a summons from England, and for promptings from France, which he never got, for Louis XIV. was dying. His great-grandson and successor was a child of three years old, and the cool, clever, cynical, dissipated Regent, Duke of Orleans, was by no means inclined to take any trouble on his behalf. The old English saying, which receives a piece of stale news with "Queen Anne is dead," seems to be founded on the vain expectation on either side that something fresh would happen. Anne died on the 31st of July, 1714, and it was not till seven weeks had passed, that on the 19th of September George I. arrived in England. He was crowned on the 20th of October, but his heavy, dull manner, and inability to speak English, gave great dissatisfaction; and though his rival was slow to move, weak, and undecided, the Jacobites began to hope. Money was secretly sent to James, and the discontented |