*
* I would particularly intimate the Kaim of Uric, on the
eastern coast of Scotland, as having suggested an idea for the
tower called Wolf's-Crag, which the public more generally
identified with the ancient tower of Fast-Castle.
The scraps of poetry which have been in
most cases tacked to the beginning of chapters
in these Novels, are sometimes quoted either
from reading or from memory, but, in the general
case, are pure invention. I found it too
troublesome to turn to the collection of the
British Poets to discover apposite mottos, and,
in the situation of the theatrical mechanist,
who, when the white paper which represented
his shower of snow was exhausted, continued
the storm by snowing brown, I drew on my
memory as long as I could, and, when that
failed, eked it out with invention. I believe
that, in some cases, where actual names are
affixed to the supposed quotations, it would be
to little purpose to seek them in the works of
the authors referred to. In some cases, I have
been entertained when Dr Watts and other
graver authors, have been ransacked in vain for
stanzas for which the novelist alone was responsible.
And now the reader may expect me, while
in the confessional, to explain the motives why
I have so long persisted iii disclaiming the
works of which I am now writing.
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