A Legend of Montrose | Page 7

I am sure I could have better forseene them myselfe then rats or any
such vermine, and yet did it not. I have heard indeed many fine stories
told of rats, how they abandon houses and ships, when the first are to
be burnt and the second dround. Naturalists say they are very sagacious
creatures, and I beleeve they are so; bot I shall never be of the opinion
they can forsee future contingencies, which I suppose the divell
himselfe can neither forknow nor fortell; these being things which the
Almightie hath keepd hidden in the bosome of his divine prescience.
And whither the great God hath preordained or predestinated these
things, which to us are contingent, to fall out by ane uncontrollable and

unavoidable necessitie, is a question not yet decided." [SIR JAMES
TURNER'S MEMOIRS, Bannatyne edition, p. 59.]
In quoting these ancient authorities, I must not forget the more modern
sketch of a Scottish soldier of the old fashion, by a masterhand, in the
character of Lesmahagow, since the existence of that doughty Captain
alone must deprive the present author of all claim to absolute
originality. Still Dalgetty, as the production of his own fancy, has been
so far a favourite with its parent, that he has fallen into the error of
assigning to the Captain too prominent a part in the story. This is the
opinion of a critic who encamps on the highest pinnacles of literature;
and the author is so far fortunate in having incurred his censure, that it
gives his modesty a decent apology for quoting the praise, which it
would have ill-befited him to bring forward in an unmingled state. The
passage occurs in the EDINBURGH REVIEW, No. 55, containing a
criticism on IVANHOE:--
"There is too much, perhaps, of Dalgetty,--or, rather, he engrosses too
great a proportion of the work,--for, in himself, we think he is
uniformly entertaining;--and the author has nowhere shown more
affinity to that matchless spirit who could bring out his Falstaffs and his
Pistols, in act after act, and play after play, and exercise them every
time with scenes of unbounded loquacity, without either exhausting
their humour, or varying a note from its characteristic tone, than in his
large and reiterated specimens of the eloquence of the redoubted Ritt-
master. The general idea of the character is familiar to our comic
dramatists after the Restoration--and may be said in some measure to
be compounded of Captain Fluellen and Bobadil;--but the ludicrous
combination of the SOLDADO with the Divinity student of
Mareschal-College, is entirely original; and the mixture of talent,
selfishness, courage, coarseness, and conceit, was never so happily
exemplified. Numerous as his speeches are, there is not one that is not
characteristic--and, to our taste, divertingly ludicrous."
POSTSCRIPT.
While these pages were passing through the press, the author received a
letter from the present Robert Stewart of Ardvoirlich, favouring him
with the account of the unhappy slaughter of Lord Kilpont, differing
from, and more probable than, that given by Bishop Wishart, whose
narrative infers either insanity or the blackest treachery on the part of

James Stewart of Ardvoirlich, the ancestor of the present family of that
name. It is but fair to give the entire communication as received from
my respected correspondent, which is more minute than the histories of
the period.
"Although I have not the honour of being personally known to you, I
hope you will excuse the liberty I now take, in addressing you on the
subject of a transaction more than once alluded to by you, in which an
ancestor of mine was unhappily concerned. I allude to the slaughter of
Lord Kilpont, son of the Earl of Airth and Monteith, in 1644, by James
Stewart of Ardvoirlich. As the cause of this unhappy event, and the
quarrel which led to it, have never been correctly stated in any history
of the period in which it took place, I am induced, in consequence of
your having, in the second series of your admirable Tales on the
History of Scotland, adopted Wishart's version of the transaction, and
being aware that your having done so will stamp it with an authenticity
which it does not merit, and with a view, as far as possible, to do justice
to the memory of my unfortunate ancestor, to send you the account of
this affair as it has been handed down in the family.
"James Stewart of Ardvoirlich, who lived in the early part of the 17th
century, and who was the unlucky cause of the slaughter of Lord
Kilpont, as before mentioned, was appointed to the command of one of
several independent companies raised in the Highlands at the
commencement of the troubles in the reign of Charles I.; another of
these companies was under the command of Lord Kilpont,