a patch
of lace on a Scottish cloak of Galashiels grey. Some might be worse, and
then I must reject them, to the injury of the feelings of the writer, or
else insert them, to make my own darkness yet more opaque and palpable.
"Let every herring," says our old-fashioned proverb, "hang by his own
head."

One person, however, I may distinguish, as she is now no more, who,
living to the utmost term of human life, honoured me with a great share
of her friendship--as, indeed, we were blood-relatives in the Scottish
sense--Heaven knows how many degrees removed--and friends in the sense
of Old England. I mean the late excellent and regretted Mrs. Bethune
Baliol. But as I design this admirable picture of the olden time for a
principal character in my work, I will only say here that she knew and
approved of my present purpose; and though she declined to contribute
to it while she lived, from a sense of dignified retirement, which she
thought became her age, sex, and condition in life, she left me some
materials for carrying on my proposed work which I coveted when I
heard her detail them in conversation, and which now, when I have their
substance in her own handwriting, I account far more valuable than
anything I have myself to offer. I hope the mentioning her name in
conjunction with my own will give no offence to any of her numerous
friends, as it was her own express pleasure that I should employ the
manuscripts which she did me the honour to bequeath me in the manner
in which I have now used them. It must be added, however, that in
most cases I have disguised names, and in some have added shading and
colouring to bring out the narrative.

Much of my materials, besides these, are derived from friends, living
or dead. The accuracy of some of these may be doubtful, in which case I
shall be happy to receive, from sufficient authority, the correction of
the errors which must creep into traditional documents. The object of
the whole publication is to throw some light on the manners of Scotland
as they were, and to contrast them occasionally with those of the
present day. My own opinions are in favour of our own times in many
respects, but not in so far as affords means for exercising the
imagination or exciting the interest which attaches to other times. I am
glad to be a writer or a reader in 1826, but I would be most interested
in reading or relating what happened from half a century to a century
before. We have the best of it.