THE

ANTIQUARY.

BY THE

AUTHOR OF «WAVERLEY" AND "GUY MANNERING."

I knew Anselmo. He was shrewd and prudent;
Wisdom and cunning had their shares of him;
But he was shrewish as a wayward child,
And pleased again by toys which childhood please;
As-book of fables graced with print of wood,
Or else the jingling of a rusty medal,

Or the rare melody of some old ditty,

That first was sung to please King Pepin's cradle.

THREE VOLUMES IN TWO.

VOL. I.

NEW-YORK:

PUBLISHED BY VAN WINKLE AND WILEY,

No. 3 Wall-Street.

ADVERTISEMENT.

THE present work completes a series of fictitious narratives, intended to illustrate the manners of Scotland at three different periods. WAVERLEY embraced the age of our fathers, GUY MANNERING that of our own youth, and the ANTIQUARY refers to the last ten years of the eighteenth century. I have, in the two last narratives especially, sought my principal personages in the class of society who are the last to feel the influence of that general polish which assimilates to each other the manners of different nations. Among the same class I have placed some of the scenes, in which I have endeavoured to illustrate the operation of the higher and more violent passions; both because the lower orders are less restrained by the Kabit of suppressing their feelings, and because I agree with Mr. Wordsworth, that they seldom fail to express them in the strongest and most powerful language. This is, I think, peculiarly the case with the peasantry of my own country, a class with whom I have long been familiar. The antique force and simplicity of their language, often tinctured with the oriental eloquence of Scripture, in the mouths of those of an elevated