Sir James Mackintosh to Miss Ferrier.

“LONDON, 10_th June_ 1831.

“DEAR MISS FERRIER—­Let me tell you a fact, which I hope you will excuse me from mentioning, as some subsidiary proof of your power.  On the day of the dissolution of Parliament, and in the critical hours between twelve and three, I was employed in reading part of the second volume of Destiny. My mind was so completely occupied on your colony in Argyleshire, that I did not throw away a thought on kings or parliaments, and was not moved by the general curiosity to stir abroad till I had finished your volume.  It would have been nothing if you had so agitated a youth of genius and susceptibility, prone to literary enthusiasm, but such a victory over an old hack is perhaps worthy of your notice.—­I am, my dear Miss Ferrier, your friend and admirer,

“J.  MACKINTOSH.”

Professor Wilson, “Christopher North,” and his uncle, Mr. Robert Sym, W.S., “Timothy Tickler,” discuss the merits of Destiny in the far-famed Noctes: 

“Tickler.—­’ I would also except Miss Susan Ferrier.  Her novels, no doubt, have many defects, their plots are poor, their episodes disproportionate, and the characters too often caricatures; but they are all thick-set with such specimens of sagacity, such happy traits of nature, such flashes of genuine satire, such easy humour, sterling good sense, and, above all—­God only knows where she picked it up—­mature and perfect knowledge of the world, that I think we may safely anticipate for them a different fate from what awaits even the cleverest of juvenile novels.’

“North.-’ They are the works of a very clever woman, sir, and they have one feature of true and melancholy interest quite peculiar to themselves.  It is in them alone that the ultimate breaking-down and debasement of the Highland character has been depicted.  Sir Walter Scott had fixed the enamel of genius over the last fitful gleams of their half-savage chivalry, but a humbler and sadder scene—­the age of lucre-banished clans—­of chieftains dwindled into imitation squires, and of chiefs content to barter the recollections of a thousand years for a few gaudy seasons of Almacks and Crockfords, the euthanasia of kilted aldermen and steamboat pibrochs was reserved for Miss Ferrier.’

“Tickler.—­’ She in general fails almost as egregiously as Hook does in the pathetic [1] but in her last piece there is one scene of this description worthy of either Sterne or Goldsmith.  I mean where the young man [2] supposed to have been lost at sea, revisits, after a lapse of time, the precincts of his own home, watching unseen in the twilight the occupations and bearings of the different members of the family, and resolving, under the influence of a most generous feeling, to keep the secret of his preservation.’

[1] This is not true, as there are many pathetic passages in Destiny, particularly between Edith, the heroine, and her faithless lover, Sir Reginald.