“The other story,” he adds, “is of much deeper interest.”  He describes the person who gave the title to the novel—­Robert Paterson, of the parish of Closeburn, in Dumfriesshire—­and introduces a good deal of historical knowledge, but takes exception to many of the circumstances mentioned in the story, at the same time quoting some of the best passages about Cuddie Headrigg and his mother.  In respect to the influence of Claverhouse and General Dalzell, the reviewer states that “the author has cruelly falsified history,” and relates the actual circumstances in reference to these generals.  “We know little,” he says, “that the author can say for himself to excuse these sophistications, and, therefore, may charitably suggest that he was writing a romance, and not a history.”  In conclusion, the reviewer observed, “We intended here to conclude this long article, when a strong report reached us of certain trans-Atlantic confessions, which, if genuine (though of this we know nothing), assign a different author to these volumes than the party suspected by our Scottish correspondents.  Yet a critic may be excused seizing upon the nearest suspicious person, on the principle happily expressed by Claverhouse in a letter to the Earl of Linlithgow.  He had been, it seems, in search of a gifted weaver who used to hold forth at conventicles.  “I sent to seek the webster (weaver); they brought in his brother for him; though he maybe cannot preach like his brother, I doubt not but he is as well-principled as he, wherefore I thought it would be no great fault to give him the trouble to go to the jail with the rest.”

Mr. Murray seems to have accepted the suggestion and wrote in January 1817 to Mr. Blackwood: 

“I can assure you, but in the greatest confidence, that I have discovered the author of all these Novels to be Thomas Scott, Walter Scott’s brother.  He is now in Canada.  I have no doubt but that Mr. Walter Scott did a great deal to the first ‘Waverley Novel,’ because of his anxiety to serve his brother, and his doubt about the success of the work.  This accounts for the many stories about it.  Many persons had previously heard from Mr. Scott, but you may rely on the certainty of what I have told you.  The whole country is starving for want of a complete supply of the ‘Tales of my Landlord,’ respecting the interest and merit of which there continues to be but one sentiment.”

A few weeks later Blackwood wrote to Murray: 

January 22, 1817.

“It is an odd story here, that Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Scott are the authors of all these Novels.  I, however, still think, as Mr. Croker said to me in one of his letters, that if they were not by Mr. Walter Scott, the only alternative is to give them to the devil, as by one or the other they must be written.”