'Your observation on the Waverley novels is perfectly just; instead of misleading one concerning the true history, or giving one a distaste for it, they make one relish it the better. Whereas Mrs Radcliffe's, for example, always abound with the most disgusting species of anachronism, the polished manners and sentimental cant of modern times put in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The enlightened philosophy likewise! young ladies arguing with their maids against their belief in ghosts and witches, when a judge durst not have expressed his doubts of either upon the bench. This [italics] palavering [end italics] style has crept into history through Miss Aitken, the language of whose memoirs of Elizabeth is so suited to modern notions that Mrs Scott has said it reminded her of Puddingfield's newspaper in the Anti-Jacobin German play. "Magna Charta was signed on Friday three weeks, and their Majesties, after partaking of a cold collation, returned to Windsor".'