My Aunt Margaret’s Mirror(玛格丽特阿姨的镜子).pdf

My Aunt Margaret's Mirror
My Aunt Margaret's
Mirror
by Sir Walter Scott
1
My Aunt Margaret's Mirror
INTRODUCTION.
The species of publication which e to be generally known by
the title of ANNUAL, being a miscellany of prose and verse, equipped
with numerous engravings, and put forth every year about Christmas, had
flourished for a long while in Germany before it was imitated in this
country by an enterprising bookseller, a German by birth, Mr. Ackermann.
The rapid ess of his work, as is the custom of the time, gave birth to a
host of rivals, and, among others, to an Annual styled The Keepsake, the
first volume of which appeared in 1828, and attracted much notice, chiefly
in consequence of the very mon splendour of its illustrative
paniments. The expenditure which the spirited proprietors
lavished on this magnificent volume is understood to have been not less
than from ten to twelve thousand pounds sterling!
Various gentlemen of such literary reputation that any one might think
it an honour to be associated with them had been announced as
contributors to this Annual, before application was made to me to assist in
it; and I accordingly placed with much pleasure at the Editor's disposal a
few fragments, originally designed to have been worked into the
Chronicles of the Canongate, besides a manuscript drama, the long-
neglected performance of my youthful days--"The House of Aspen."
The Keepsake for 1828 included, however, only three of these little
prose tales, of which the first in order was that entitled "My Aunt
Margaret's Mirror." By way of INTRODUCTION to this, when now
included in a general collection of my lucubrations, I have only to say that
it is a mere transcript, or at least with very little embellishment, of a story
that I remembered being struck with in my childhood, when told at the
fireside by a lady of eminent virtues and no inconsiderable share of talent,
one of the ancient and honourable house of Swinton. She was