ABSTRACT
This chapter indulges in a few reflections, as to the scope and tendency of the best specimens of modern fiction, which has escaped the rushing flood of light. The Golden Ass of Apuleius, is the most perfect specimen of the ancient novel; numerous others might be cited to show the fondness of the ancients for prose fictions. On the ruins of all, the mighty Wizard of the North erected his beautiful romances, where truth and fiction, history and poetry illustrate and adorn each other; for breadth of coloring, life-like truth of delineation, play of fancy and luxuriance of wit, his Waverley novels stand unrivalled. In fine then, the fictions of this author derive their interest, principally from the incidents of which they are full, and the vivid and life-like sketches of Irish character and manners with which they abound.
