A remark in Scott's review of Evans's _Old Ballads_ seems a pretty definite arraignment of his own procedure. "It may be asked by the severer antiquary of the present day, why an editor, thinking it necessary to introduce such alterations in order to bring forth a new, beautiful, and interesting sense from a meagre or corrupted original, did not in good faith to his readers acquaint them with the liberties he had taken and make them judge whether in so doing he transgressed his limits. We answer that unquestionably such would be the express duty of a modern editor, but such were not the rules of the service when Dr. Percy first opened the campaign."[55] One wonders whether the "rules of the service" did not in Scott's opinion occasionally permit a little wilful mystification. The case of _Kinmont Willie_ tempts one to such an explanation. Besides the capital instance of his anonymity as regards the novels, Scott several times seemed to amuse himself in perplexing the public. There was the case of the _Bridal of Triermain_, which he tried by means of various careful devices to pass off as the work of a friend. But perhaps the best example appears in connection with _The Fortunes of Nigel_. He first designed the material of that book for a series of "private letters" purporting to have been written in the reign of James I., but when he had finally complied with the advice of his friends and used it for a novel, he said to Lockhart, "You were all quite right: if the letters had passed for genuine, they would have found favour only with a few musty antiquaries."[56] This suggests comparison with the conduct of his friend Robert Surtees, who palmed off upon him three whole ballads of his own and got them inserted in the _Minstrelsy_ as ancient, with a plausible tale concerning the circumstances of their recovery. Surtees, one is interested to observe, never dared tell Scott the truth, and Scott always accepted the ballads as genuine--a lack of discernment rather compromising in an editor, though one may perhaps excuse him on the ground of his confidence in his brother antiquary.[57]