SOURCE: A review of Chronicles of the Canongate, in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. XXII, November, 1827, pp. 556-70.

In the following excerpt from a review that reprinted "The Highland Widow" almost in its entirety, Wilson admires the introduction to Chronicles of the Canongate and comments on the linguistic style of the tales.

It is not till you have read about a hundred and fifty pages of the first volume of the Chronicles of the Canongate, (why were there not four instead of two?) that you come to know the meaning of the title, the very sound of which is so taking and attractive to all ancient Caledonians. You then find that the Chronicler of the Canongate is one Croftangry of that Ilk, a Clydesdale Laird, who, having run through his not large estate in youth with great spirit and alacrity, had shipped himself off to India, there, in some...