nd corrected edition of his Novels and Romances (whose
real parentage had of necessity been disclosed at the moment of
the commercial convulsions alluded to), which has now advanced with
unprecedented favour nearly to its close; but as he purposed also to
continue, for the behoof of those to whom he was indebted, the exercise
of his pen in the same path of literature, so long as the taste of his
countrymen should seem to approve of his efforts, it appeared to him
that it would have been an idle piece of affectation to attempt getting
up a new incognito, after his original visor had been thus dashed from
his brow. Hence the personal narrative prefixed to the first work of
fiction which he put forth after the paternity of the "Waverley Novels"
had come to be publicly ascertained; and though many of the particulars
originally avowed in that Notice have been unavoidably adverted to in
the Prefaces and Notes to some of the preceding volumes of the present
collection, it is now reprinted as it stood at the time, because some
interest is generally attached to a coin or medal struck on a special
occasion, as expressing, perhaps, more faithfully than the same artist
could have afterwards conveyed, the feelings of the moment that gave
it birth. The Introduction to the first series of Chronicles of the
Canongate ran, then, in these words:--

INTRODUCTION.

All who are acquainted with the early history of the Italian stage are
aware that Arlecchino is not, in his original conception, a mere worker
of marvels with his wooden sword, a jumper in and out of windows, as
upon our theatre, but, as his party-coloured jacket implies, a buffoon
or clown, whose mouth, far from being eternally closed, as amongst us,
is filled, like that of Touchstone, with quips, and cranks, and witty
devices, very often delivered extempore. It is not easy to trace how he
became possessed of his black vizard, which was anciently made in
the resemblance of the face of a cat; but it seems that the mask was
essential to the performance of the character, as will appear from the
following theatrical anecdote:--

An actor on the Italian stage permitted at the Foire du St. Germain, in
Paris, was renowned for the wild, venturous, and extravagant wit, the
brilliant sallies and fortunate repartees, with which he prodigally
seasoned the character of the party-coloured jester. Some critics,
whose good-will towards a favourite performer was stronger than their
jud