When the Editor of the following volumes published, about two years
since, the work called the “Antiquary,” he announced that he was, for the
last time, intruding upon the public in his present capacity. He might
shelter himself under the plea that every anonymous writer is, like the
celebrated Junius, only a phantom, and that therefore, although an
apparition, of a more benign, as well as much meaner description, he
cannot be bound to plead to a charge of inconsistency. A better apology
may be found in the imitating the confession of honest Benedict, that,
when he said he would die a bachelor, he did not think he should live to
be married. The best of all would be, if, as has eminently happened in
the case of some distinguished contemporaries, the merit of the work
should, in the reader's estimation, form an excuse for the Author's
breach of promise. Without presuming to hope that this may prove the
case, it is only further necessary to mention, that his resolution, like
that of Benedict, fell a sacrifice, to temptation at least, if not to
stratagem.
It is now about six months since the Author, through the medium of his
respectable Publishers, received a parcel of Papers, containing the
Outlines of this narrative, with a permission, or rather with a request,
couched in highly flattering terms, that they might be given to the
Public, with such alterations as should be found suitable.*
* As it maybe necessary, in the present Edition(1829), to speak upon the
square, the Author thinks it proper to own, that the communication
alluded to is entirely imaginary.
These were of course so numerous, that, besides the suppression of names,
and of incidents approaching too much to reality, the work may in a great
measure be, said to be new written. Several anachronisms have probably
crept in during the course of these changes; and the mottoes for the
Chapters have been selected without any reference to the supposed date of
the incidents. For these, of course, the Editor is responsible. Some
others occurred in the original materials, but they are of little
consequence. In point of minute accuracy, it may be stated, that the
bridge over the Forth, or rather the Avondhu (or Black River), near the
hamlet of Aberfoil, had not an existence thirty years ago. It does not,
however, become the Editor to be the first to point out these errors; and
he takes this public opportunity to thank the unknown and nameless
correspondent, to whom the reader will owe the principal share of any
amusement which he may derive from the following pages.
1st December 1817.