Waverley Novels — Volume 12
Page 59
MY AUNT MARGARET'S MIRROR
INTRODUCTION.--(1831.)
The species of publication--which has come to be generally known by thetitle of _Annual_, being a miscellany of prose and verse, equipped withnumerous engravings, and put forth every year about Christmas, hadflourished for a long while in Germany, before it was imitated in thiscountry by an enterprising bookseller, a German by birth, Mr.Ackermann. The rapid success of his work, as is the custom of the time,gave birth to a host of rivals, and, among others, to an Annual styledThe Keepsake, the first volume of which appeared in 1828, and attractedmuch notice, chiefly in consequence of the very uncommon splendour ofits illustrative accompaniments. The expenditure which the spiritedproprietors lavished on this magnificent volume, is understood to havebeen not less than from ten to twelve thousand pounds sterling!
Various gentlemen, of such literary reputation that any one might thinkit an honour to be associated with them, had been announced ascontributors to this Annual, before application was made to me toassist in it; and I accordingly placed with much pleasure at theEditor's disposal a few fragments, originally designed to have beenworked into the Chronicles of the Canongate, besides a MS. Drama, thelong-neglected performance of my youthful days,--the House of Aspen.
The Keepsake for 1828 included, however, only three of these littleprose tales--of which the first in order was that entitled "My AuntMargaret's Mirror." By way of _introduction_ to this, when now includedin a general collection of my lucubrations, I have only to say that itis a mere transcript, or at least with very little embellishment, of astory that I remembered being struck with in my childhood, when told atthe fireside by a lady of eminent virtues, and no inconsiderable shareof talent, one of the ancient and honourable house of Swinton. She wasa kind relation of my own, and met her death in a manner so shocking,being killed in a fit of insanity by a female attendant who had beenattached to her person for half a lifetime, that I cannot now recallher memory, child as I was when the catastrophe occurred, without apainful reawakening of perhaps the first images of horror that thescenes of real life stamped on my mind.
This good spinster had in her composition a strong vein of thesuperstitious, and was pleased, among other fancies, to read alone inher chamber by a taper fixed in a candlestick which she had formed outof a human skull. One night, this strange piece of furniture acquiredsuddenly the power of locomotion, and, after performing some oddcircles on her chimneypiece, fairly leaped on the floor, and continuedto roll about the apartment. Mrs. Swinton calmly proceeded to theadjoining room for another light, and had the satisfaction to penetratethe mystery on the spot. Rats abounded in the ancient building sheinhabited, and one of these had managed to ensconce itself within herfavourite _memento mori_. Though thus endowed with a more than feminineshare of nerve, she entertained largely that belief in supernaturals,which in those times was not considered as sitting ungracefully on thegrave and aged of her condition; and the story of the Magic Mirror wasone for which she vouched with particular confidence, alleging indeedthat one of her own family had been an eye-witness of the incidentsrecorded in it.
"I tell the tale as it was told to me."
Stories enow of much the same cast will present themselves to therecollection of such of my readers as have ever dabbled in a species oflore to which I certainly gave more hours, at one period of my life,than I should gain any credit by confessing.
_August_, 1831.