tt."

PREFACE {p.xxxvii}

LONDON, December 20, 1836.

In obedience to the instructions of Sir Walter Scott's last will, I
had made some progress in a narrative of his personal history, before
there was discovered, in an old cabinet at Abbotsford, an
autobiographical fragment, composed by him in 1808--shortly after the
publication of his Marmion.

This fortunate accident rendered it necessary that I should altogether
remodel the work which I had commenced. The first chapter of the
following Memoirs consists of the Ashestiel fragment; which gives a
clear outline of his early life down to the period of his call to the
Bar--July, 1792. All the notes appended to this chapter are also by
himself. They are in a handwriting very different from the text, and
seem, from various circumstances, to have been added in 1826.

It appeared to me, however, that the author's modesty had prevented
him from telling the story of his youth with that fulness of detail
which would now satisfy the public. I have therefore recast my own
collections as to the period in question, and presented the substance
of them, in five succeeding chapters, as _illustrations_ of his too
brief autobiography. This procedure has been attended with many
obvious disadvantages; but I greatly preferred it to printing the
precious fragment in an Appendix.

I foresee that some readers may be apt to accuse me of trenching
{p.xxxviii} upon delicacy in certain details of the sixth and seventh
chapters in this volume. Though the circumstances there treated of had
no trivial influence on Sir Walter Scott's history and character, I
should have been inclined, for many reasons, to omit them; but the
choice was, in fact, not left to me,--for they had been mentioned, and
misrepresented, in various preceding sketches of the Life which I had
undertaken to illustrate. Such being the case, I considered it as my
duty to tell the story truly and intelligibly; but I trust I have
avoided unnecessary disclosures; and, after all, there was nothing to
disclose that could have attached blame to any of the parties
concerned.

For the copious materials which the friends of Sir Walter have placed
at my disposal I feel just gratitude. Several of them are named in the
course of the present volume; but I must take this opportunity of
expressing my sense of the deep obligations under which I have been
laid by the frank communications, in part