SOURCE: Review of The Cottagers of Glenburnie. The Edinburgh Review 12, no. 24 (July 1808): 401-10.

In the following review, the anonymous critic enthusiastically welcomes Cottagers of Glenburnie as a vibrant and compassionate portrayal of the Scottish peasantry as well as an excellent vehicle for social reform.

We have not met with any thing nearly so good as this, since we read the Castle Rackrent and the Popular Tales of Miss Edgeworth. This contains as admirable a picture of the Scotish peasantry as those works do of the Irish; and rivals them, not only in the general truth of the delineations, and in the cheerfulness and practical good sense of the lessons which they convey, but in the nice discrimination of national character, and the skill with which a dramatic representation of humble life is saved from caricature and absurdity.

After having given this just and attractive description of the book...