the communication took
place. Just before we sat down to table, Lord Meadowbank [One of the
Supreme Judges of Scotland, termed Lords of Council and Session.] asked
me privately whether I was still anxious to preserve my incognito on the
subject of what were called the Waverley Novels? I did not immediately
see the purpose of his lordship's question, although I certainly might
have been led to infer it, and replied that the secret had now of
necessity become known to so many people that I was indifferent on the
subject. Lord Meadowbank was thus induced, while doing me the great
honour of proposing my health to the meeting, to say something on the
subject of these Novels so strongly connecting them with me as the
author, that by remaining silent I must have stood convicted, either of
the actual paternity, or of the still greater crime of being supposed
willing to receive indirectly praise to which I had no just title. I
thus found myself suddenly and unexpectedly placed in the confessional,
and had only time to recollect that I had been guided thither by a most
friendly hand, and could not, perhaps, find a better public opportunity
to lay down a disguise which began to resemble that of a detected
masquerader.

I had therefore the task of avowing myself, to the numerous and
respectable company assembled, as the sole and unaided author of these
Novels of Waverley, the paternity of which was likely at one time to
have formed a controversy of some celebrity, for the ingenuity with
which some instructors of the public gave their assurance on the subject
was extremely persevering. I now think it further necessary to say
that, while I take on myself all the merits and demerits attending these
compositions, I am bound to acknowledge with gratitude hints of subjects
and legends which I have received from various quarters, and have
occasionally used as a foundation of my fictitious compositions, or
woven up with them in the shape of episodes. I am bound, in particular,
to acknowledge the unremitting kindness of Mr. Joseph Train, supervisor
of excise at Dumfries, to whose unwearied industry I have been indebted
for many curious traditions and points of antiquarian interest. It was
Mr. Train who brought to my recollection the history of Old Mortality,
although I myself had had a personal interview with that celebrated
wanderer so far back as about 1792, when I found him on his usual task.
He was then engaged in repairing the Gravesto