ABBOTSFORD, OCTOBER 1, 1827.

*

Such was the little narrative which I thought proper to put forth
in October 1827; nor have I much to add to it now. About to
appear for the first time in my own name in this department of
letters, it occurred to me that something in the shape of a
periodical publication might carry with it a certain air of
novelty, and I was willing to break, if I may so express it, the
abruptness of my personal forthcoming, by investing an imaginary
coadjutor with at least as much distinctness of individual
existence as I had ever previously thought it worth while to
bestow on shadows of the same convenient tribe. Of course, it
had never been in my contemplation to invite the assistance of
any real person in the sustaining of my quasi-editorial character
and labours. It had long been my opinion, that any thing like a
literary PICNIC is likely to end in suggesting comparisons,
justly termed odious, and therefore to be avoided; and, indeed, I
had also had some occasion to know, that promises of assistance,
in efforts of that order, are apt to be more magnificent than the
subsequent performance. I therefore planned a Miscellany, to be
dependent, after the old fashion, on my own resources alone, and
although conscious enough that the moment which assigned to the
Author of Waverley "a local habitation and a name," had seriously
endangered his spell, I felt inclined to adopt the sentiment of
my old hero Montrose, and to say to myself, that in literature,
as in war,--

"He either fears his fate too much,