INTRODUCTIONS,

AND

NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS,

TO THE

NOVELS, TALES, AND ROMANCES,

OF THE

AUTHOR OF WAVERLEY.

VOL. I.

WAVERLEY-HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN.

EDINBURGH:

PRINTED FOR ROBERT CADELL, EDINBURGH;

AND WHITTAKER & CO. LONDON.

MDCCCXXXIII.

GENERAL PREFACE.

WAVERLEY.

And must I ravel out

My weaved-up follies?

Richard II. Act IV.

HAVING undertaken to give an Introductory Account of the compositions which are here offered to the public, with Notes and Illustrations, the Author, under whose name they are now for the first time collected, feels that he has the delicate task of speaking more of himself and his personal concerns, than may perhaps be either graceful or prudent. In this particular, he runs the risk of presenting himself to the public in the relation that the dumb wife in the jest-book held to her husband, when, having spent half of his fortune to obtain the cure of her imperfection, he was willing to have bestowed the other half to restore her to her former condition. But this is a risk inseparable from the task which the Author has undertaken, and he