We are used to them; but _sentiment_ and _sentimental_ were, I believe, first introduced into the language by Sterne, and are hardly as old as I am. Let alone the Covenanters' days, I am persuaded you would look in vain for them in the works of Richardson and Fielding. Nay, the French, from whom they were borrowed, did not talk of _le sentiment_ in that sense till long after Louis XIV.'s reign. No such thing is to be found in Madame de Sévigné, la Bruyère, etc., etc., etc. At home or abroad I defy Lord Dundee ever to have met with the expression. Mr. Peter Pattieson had been reading the _Man of Feeling_, and it was a slip of his tongue, which I am less inclined to excuse than Mause's abstruse Scotch, which I duly reverence, as she did Kettledrummle's sermons, because I do not understand it. Once more I shall be much disappointed if this work does not quickly acquire a very great reputation. I fancy Mr. Morritt is in the secret; yet, as I am not certain, I will keep on the secure side and not mention it when I write to him, however one may long to _intercommune_ on such subjects with those likely to hold the same faith." At the close of his reply, Scott says: "I must not forget to thank your Ladyship for your acute and indisputable criticism on the application of the word _sentimental_. How it escaped my pen I know not, unless that the word owed me a grudge for the ill will I have uniformly borne it, and was resolved to slip itself in for the express purpose of disgracing me. I will certainly turn it out the first opportunity." This was done in the second edition.--_Familiar Letters_, vol. i. pp. 394, 400.]]