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DEDICATORY EPISTLE.
xv

the very office of an antiquary, employed in grave, and, as the vulgar will sometimes allege, in minute and toilsome research, must be considered as incapacitating him from successfully compounding a tale of this sort. But permit me to say, my dear doctor, that this objection is rather formal than substantial. It is true, that such slighter compositions might not suit the severer genius of our friend Mr Oldbuck. Yet Horace Walpole wrote a goblin tale which has thrilled many a bosom; and George Ellis could transfer all the playful fascination of a humour, as delightful as it was uncommon, into his Abridgement of the Ancient Metrical Romances.

So that, however I may have occasion to rue my present audacity, I have at least the most respectable precedents in my favour.

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