, when, being affected
with severe illness, he was obliged to employ the assistance of a
friendly amanuensis.

The number of persons to whom the secret was necessarily entrusted, or
communicated by chance, amounted, I should think, to twenty at least, to
whom I am greatly obliged for the fidelity with which they observed their
trust, until the derangement of the affairs of my publishers, Messrs.
Constable and Co., and the exposure of their account books, which was the
necessary consequence, rendered secrecy no longer possible. The
particulars attending the avowal have been laid before the public in the
Introduction to the Chronicles of the Canongate.

The preliminary advertisement has given a sketch of the purpose of this
edition. I have some reason to fear that the notes which accompany the
tales, as now published, may be thought too miscellaneous and too
egotistical. It maybe some apology for this, that the publication was
intended to be posthumous, and still more, that old men may be permitted
to speak long, because they cannot in the course of nature have long time
to speak. In preparing the present edition, I have done all that I can do
to explain the nature of my materials, and the use I have made of them;
nor is it probable that I shall again revise or even read these tales. I
was therefore desirous rather to exceed in the portion of new and
explanatory matter which is added to this edition than that the reader
should have reason to complain that the information communicated was of a
general and merely nominal character. It remains to be tried whether the
public (like a child to whom a watch is shown) will, after having been
satiated with looking at the outside, acquire some new interest in the
object when it is opened and the internal machinery displayed to them.

That Waverly and its successors have had their day of favour and
popularity must be admitted with sincere gratitude; and the Author has
studied (with the prudence of a beauty whose reign has been rather long)
to supply, by the assistance of art, the charms which novelty no longer
affords. The publishers have endeavoured to gratify the honourable
partiality of the public for the encouragement of British art, by
illustrating this edition with designs by the most eminent living
artists. [Footnote: The illustrations here referred to were made for the
edition of 1829]

To my distinguished countryman, David Wilkie, to Edwin Landseer, who has
exercised hi