It is unnecessary further to withdraw the veil
from this scene of family distress, nor, although it occurred
more than a hundred years since, might it be altogether agreeable
to the representatives of the families concerned in the
narrative. It may be proper to say that the events alone are
imitated; but I had neither the means nor intention of copying
the manners, or tracing the characters, of the persons concerned
in the real story. Indeed, I may here state generally that,
although I have deemed historical personages free subjects of
delineation, I have never on any occasion violated the respect
due to private life. It was indeed impossible that traits proper
to persons, both living and dead, with whom I have had
intercourse in society, should not have risen to my pen in such
works as Waverley, and those which followed it. But I have
always studied to generalize the portraits, so that they should
still seem, on the whole, the productions of fancy, though
possessing some resemblance to real individuals. Yet I must own
my attempts have not in this last particular been uniformly
successful.
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