spired by a success probably greater than he had
ever anticipated, and a sudden and wide-spread reputation induced him to
overtask his energies, in a manner inconsistent with the care due to a
delicate constitution. After having carried on the work, almost
single-handed, for a period of more than a year--furnishing a tale every
week--he took ill, and died. Subsequently, the charge of conducting the
work devolved upon the present Editor, who was fortunate enough to
secure the assistance of certain writers well qualified to sustain the
reputation which the first part of the series had acquired. Among these
were the late Hugh Miller, the late Professor Thomas Gillespie of St.
Andrew's, Alexander Campbell, Alexander and John Bethune, and John
Howell, all of whom possessed those natural gifts, enabling them to
succeed in a species of literature which, while in one sense it may be
called the most easy, is, in another, perhaps among the most difficult
of any.

The only condition by which the natural promptings of their genius might
have been restrained was, that the contributions should be genuine
stories, not the ordinary mixture of narrative, didactic essay, and
fanciful prolusion, but tales in the proper every-day sense, with such
an objectiveness as would portray, graphically and naturally, the men
and women of the times, acting on the stage where they were destined to
perform their strange parts, and would exclude all false colourings of a
sentimental fiction, belonging to mere subjective moods of the writer's
fancy or feeling. The greatest care was also taken with the moral aspect
of the Tales, with the view that parents and guardians might feel a
confidence that, in committing them into the hands of their children and
wards, they would be imparting the means of instruction, and at the same
time securing a guarantee for the growth of moral convictions. By such
means, the Tales were kept true to history, legend, morality, and man's
nature, and, at the same time, made acceptable to the great class of
readers who had declared their predilection in favour of the manner of
the early examples.

The Tales in this series have been carefully selected and revised; and
the reader will be pleased to be informed that, in the course of the
publication, there will, for the purpose of imparting to it a fresh
interest, be inserted New Tales, written by authors deemed capable of
attaining the mark of the Original Series.

YORK LODGE, T