PEVERIL OF THE PEAK.

"If my readers should at any time remark that I am particularly dull, they may be assured there is a design under it."-British Essayist.

INTRODUCTION

ΤΟ

PEVERIL OF THE PEAK.

IF I had valued my own reputation, as it is said I ought in prudence to have done, I might have now drawn a line, and remained for life, or (who knows?) perhaps for some years after death, the "ingenious author of Waverley." I was not, however, more desirous of this sort of immortality, which might have lasted some twenty or thirty years, than Falstaff of the embowelling which was promised him after the field of Shrewsbury, by his patron the Prince of Wales. "Embowel'd? If you embowel me to-day, you may powder and eat me to-mor

row!"

If my occupation as a romancer were taken

from me, I felt I should have at a late hour in life to find me out another; when I could hardly expect to acquire those new tricks, which are proverbially said not to be learned by those dogs who are getting old. Besides, I had yet to learn from the public, that my intrusions were disagreeable; and while I was endured with some patience, I felt I had all the reputation which I greatly coveted. My memory was well stored, both with historical, local, and traditional notices, and I had become almost as licensed a plague to the public as the well-remembered beggar of the ward, whom men distinguish by their favour, perhaps for no better reason than that they had been in the habit of giving him alms, as a part of the business of their daily promenade. The general fact is undeniable,— all men grow old, all men must wear out; but men of ordinary wisdom, however aware of the general fact, are unwilling to admit in their own case any special instances of failure. Indeed, they can hardly be expected themselves to distinguish the effects of the Archbishop of Granada's apoplexy, and are not unwilling to pass over in their composition, as instances of mere carelessness or bad luck, what others may consider as symptoms of mortal decay. I had