The Waverley novels, by Sir Walter Scott, complete in 12 vol., printed from the latest English ed., embracing the author's last corrections, prefaces & notes.

314 WAVERLEY NOVELS.
nected him deeply and extensively with the pecuniary transactions of that
profession. In a word, almost without one note of premonition, I found
myself involved in the sweeping catastrophe of the unhappy time, and
called on to meet the demands of creditors upon commercial establishments
with which my fortunes had long been bound up, to the extent of no less a
sum than one hundred and twenty thousand pounds.
The author having, however rashly, committed his pledges thus largely to
the hazards of trading companies, it behoved him, of course, to abide the
consequences qf his conduct, and, with whatever feelings, he surrendered
on the instant every shred of property which he had been accustomed to
call his own. It became vested in the hands of gentlemen, whose integrity,
prudence, and intelligence, were combined with all possible liberality and
kindness of disposition, and who readily afforded every assistance towards
the execution of plans, in the success of which the author contemplated the
possibility of his ultimate extrication, and which were of such a nature,
that had assistance of this sort been withheld, he could have had little prospect of carrying them into effect. Among other resources which occurred,
was the project of that complete and 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 Chronicled
of the Canongate ran, then, in these words:
INTRODUCTION.
ALL who are acquainted with the early history of the Italian stage are
aware, that Arlechino 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