text:  The story at least in most of his earlier and most popular pieces--_Waverley_ the _Antiquary_ the _Bride of Lammermoor_ _Old Mortality_ the _Abbot_ _Ivanhoe_ _Kenilworth_ _Quentin Durward_ and _Rob Roy_--is extremely simple; the incidents few and well chosen; the interest of an _homogeneous_ kind and uniformly sustained; the inferior characters and incidents kept in their due subordination to the principal ones