The accounts of the battle
of Preston and skirmish at Clifton are taken from the narrative of
intelligent eye-witnesses, and corrected from the History of the
Rebellion by the late venerable author of DOUGLAS. The Lowland Scottish
gentlemen, and the subordinate characters, are not given as individual
portraits, but are drawn from the general habits of the period (of which
I have witnessed some remnants in my younger days), and partly gathered
from tradition.
It has been my object to describe these persons, not by a caricatured
and exaggerated use of the national dialect, but by their habits,
manners, and feelings; so as in some distant degree to emulate the
admirable Irish portraits drawn by Miss Edgeworth, so different from
the 'Teagues' and 'dear joys,' who so long, with the most perfect family
resemblance to each other, occupied the drama and the novel.
I feel no confidence, however, in the manner in which I have executed
my purpose. Indeed, so little was I satisfied with my production, that
I laid it aside in an unfinished state, and only found it again by mere
accident among other waste papers in an old cabinet, the drawers of
which I was rummaging, in order to accommodate a friend with some
fishing tackle, after it had been mislaid for several years.
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