 that he has the
delicate task of speaking more of himself and his personal concerns, than may
perhaps be either graceful or prudent. In this particular, he runs the risk of
presenting himself to the public in the relation that the dumb wife in the
jest-book held to her husband, when, having spent half of his fortune to obtain
the cure of her imperfection, he was willing to have bestowed the other half to
restore her to her former condition. But this is a risk inseparable from the
task which the Author has undertaken, and he can only promise to be as little of
an egotist as the situation will permit. It is perhaps an indifferent sign of a
disposition to keep his word, that having introduced himself in the third person
singular, he proceeds in the second paragraph to make use of the first. But it
appears to him that the seeming modesty connected with the former mode of
writing, is overbalanced by the inconvenience of stiffness and affectation which
attends it during a narrative of some length, and which may be observed less or
more in every work in which the third person is used, from the Commentaries of
Cæsar, to the Autobiography of Alexander the Corrector.
    I must refer to a very early period of my life, were I to point out my first
achievements as a tale-teller - but I believe some of my old schoolfellows can
still bear witness that I had a distinguished character for that talent, at a
time when the applause of my companions was my recompense for the disgraces and
punishments which the future romance-writer incurred for being idle himself, and
keeping others idle, during hours that should have been employed on our tasks.
The chief enjoyment of my holidays was to escape with a chosen friend, who had
the same taste with myself, and alternately to recite to each other such wild
adventures as we were able to devise. We told, each in turn, interminable tales
of knight-errantry and battles and enchantments, which were continued from one
day to another as opportunity offered, without our ever thinking of bringing
them to a conclusion. As we observed a strict secrecy on the subject of this
intercourse, it acquired all the character of a concealed pleasure; and we used
to select, for the scenes of our indulgence, long walks through the solitary and
romantic environs of Arthur's Seat, Salisbury Crags, Braid Hills, and similar
places in the vicinity of Edinburgh; and the recollection of those holidays
still forms an oasis in the pilgrimage which I have to look back upon. I have
only to add, that my friend still lives a prosperous
