3-034-550 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Scott Centenary: a Dream of the Waverley Novels, 1871. Sketch which '... will probably not require to be explained to the innumerable readers of Sir Walter Scott's admirable stories. They will have no difficulty in identifying all the characters or figures here represented...Amy Robsart, or rather Amy Dudley, fondly leaning on her husband...is seen in the foreground. She is contrasted with "Old Mortality," the enthusiastic preserver of tombstone inscriptions, who wanders in country churchyards...Jeanie Deans, the best and bravest of young Scotchwomen, who is on her road from Edinburgh to London, travelling alone and on foot, to beg King and Queen for her fallen sister's forfeit life, sits with her bundle, fatigued but not disheartened...Mr. Jonathan Oldbuck, the "Antiquary;" Fergus M'Ivor, the Highland chieftain of 1745; Sir Henry Lee, of "Woodstock;" Mary Queen of Scots; the Templar carrying off Rebecca; Meg Merrilies the Gipsy; Norna of the Shetland Isles...are to be recognised at a glance. We shall leave the reader to their unassisted contemplation, referring him to the many volumes of Scott's novels, a delightful and instructive study, for all that concerns the subjects which our Artist has lightly and hastily portrayed'. From "Illustrated London News", 1871.