
                                Sir Walter Scott

                            The Bride of Lammermoore

     (Tales of My Landlord collected and arranged by Jedediah Cleishbotham,
                 schoolmaster and parish-clerk of Gandercleugh

                                 Third Series)

 Hear, Land o' Cakes and brither Scots,
 Frae Maidenkirk to Johnny Groat's,
 I rede ye tent it;
 A chiel's amang you takin' notes,
 An' faith he'll prent it! -
                                                                          Burns.
 
            Ahora bien, dijo el Cura: traedme, senor huésped, aquesos libros,
            que los quierover. Que me place, respondiô el; y entrando en su
            aposento, sacô dêl una maletilla vieja cerrada con una cadenilla, y
            abriéndola, hallô en ella tres libros grandes y unos papeles de muy
            buena letra escritos de mano. -
                                              Don Quixote, Parte I. Capitulo 32.

                              Introduction - 1830

 
The Author, on a former occasion, declined giving the real source from which he
drew the tragic subject of this history, because, though occurring at a distant
period, it might possibly be unpleasing to the feelings of the descendants of
the parties. But as he finds an account of the circumstances given in the Notes
to Law's Memorials,1 by his ingenious friend Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, Esq.,
and also indicated in his reprint of the Rev. Mr. Symson's Poems, appended to
the Description of Galloway,2 as the original of the Bride of Lammermoor, the
Author feels himself now at liberty to tell the tale as he had it from
connections of his own, who lived very near the period, and were closely related
to the family of the Bride.
    It is well known that the family of Dalrymple, which has produced, within
the space of two centuries, as many men of talent, civil and military, and of
literary, political, and professional eminence, as any house in Scotland, first
rose into distinction in the person of James Dalrymple, one of the most eminent
lawyers that ever lived, though the labours of his powerful mind were unhappily
exercised on a subject so limited as Scottish Jurisprudence, on which he has
composed an admirable work. He married Margaret, daughter to Ross of Balniel,
with whom he obtained a considerable estate. She was an able, politic, and
high-minded woman, so successful in what she undertook, that the vulgar, no way
partial to her husband or her family, imputed her success to necromancy.
According to the popular belief, this Dame Margaret purchased the temporal
prosperity of her family from the Master whom she served, under a singular
condition, which is thus narrated by the historian of her grandson, the great
Earl of Stair
