Rob Roy

Introduction

ADVERTISEMENT TO THE FIRST EDITION

When the Editor of the following volumes published, about two years

since, the work called the "Antiquary," he announced that he was, for the

last time, intruding upon the public in his present capacity. He might

shelter himself under the plea that every anonymous writer is, like the

celebrated Junius, only a phantom, and that therefore, although an

apparition, of a more benign, as well as much meaner description, he

cannot be bound to plead to a charge of inconsistency. A better apology

may be found in the imitating the confession of honest Benedict, that,

when he said he would die a bachelor, he did not think he should live to

be married. The best of all would be, if, as has eminently happened in

the case of some distinguished contemporaries, the merit of the work

should, in the reader's estimation, form an excuse for the Author's

breach of promise. Without presuming to hope that this may prove the

case, it is only further necessary to mention, that his resolution, like

that of Benedict, fell a sacrifice, to temptation at least, if not to

stratagem.

It is now about six months since the Author, through the medium of his

respectable Publishers, received a parcel of Papers, containing the

Outlines of this narrative, with a permission, or rather with a request,

couched in highly flattering terms, that they might be given to the

Public, with such alterations as should be found suitable.*

* As it maybe necessary, in the present Edition(1829), to speak upon the

square, the Author thinks it proper to own, that the communication

alluded to is entirely imaginary.

These were of course so numerous, that, besides the suppression of names,

and of incidents approaching too much to reality, the work may in a great

measure be, said to be new written. Several anachronisms have probably

crept in during the course of these changes; and the mottoes for the

Chapters have been selected without any reference to the supposed date of

the incidents. For these, of course, the Editor is responsible. Some

others occurred in the original materials, but they are of little

consequence. In point of minute accuracy, it may be stated, that the

bridge over the Forth, or rather the Avondhu (or Black River), near the

hamlet of Aberfoil, had not an existence thirty years ago. It does not,

however, become the Editor to be the first to point out these errors; and

he takes this public opportunity to thank the unknown and nameless

correspondent, to whom the reader will owe the principal share of any

amusement which he may derive from the following pages.

1st December 1817.

INTRODUCTION---(1829)

When the author projected this further encroachment on the patience of an

indulgent public, he was at some loss for a title; a good name being very

nearly of as much consequence in literature as in life. The title of _Rob

Roy_ was suggested by the late Mr. Constable, whose sagacity and

experience foresaw the germ of popularity which it included.

No introduction can be more appropriate to the work than some account of

the singular character whose name is given to the title-page, and who,

through good report and bad report, has maintained a wonderful degree of

importance in popular recollection. This cannot be ascribed to the

distinction of his birth, which, though that of a gentleman, had in it

nothing of high destination, and gave him little right to command in his

clan. Neither, though he lived a busy, restless, and enterprising life,

were his feats equal to those of other freebooters, who have been less

distinguished. He owed his fame in a great measure to his residing on the

very verge of the Highlands, and playing such pranks in the beginning of

the 18th century, as are usually ascribed to Robin Hood in the middle

ages,--and that within forty miles of Glasgow, a great commercial city,

the seat of a learned university. Thus a character like his, blending the

wild virtues, the subtle policy, and unrestrained license of an American

Indian, was flourishing in Scotland during the Augustan age of Queen Anne

and George I. Addison, it is probable, or Pope, would have been

considerably surprised if they had known that there, existed in the same

island with them a personage of Rob Roy's peculiar habits and profession.

It is this strong contrast betwixt the civilised and cultivated mode of

life on the one side of the Highland line, and the wild and lawless

adventures which were habitually undertaken and achieved by one who dwelt

on the opposite side of that ideal boundary, which creates the interest

attached to his name. Hence it is that even yet,