To Alessandro Manzoni, as to the Genius of the Place,

Are Dedicated These Fruits, gathered on The Soil of Italian Fiction.

London, Dec. 1, 1835.



Dedication,

Prefixed to the First Collected Edition of the Author's Works in 1840.

My Dear Mother,

In inscribing with your beloved and honoured name this Collection of my
Works, I could wish that the fruits of my manhood were worthier of the
tender and anxious pains bestowed upon my education in youth.

Left yet young, and with no ordinary accomplishments and gifts, the sole
guardian of your sons, to them you devoted the best years of your useful
and spotless life; and any success it be their fate to attain in the
paths they have severally chosen, would have its principal sweetness
in the thought that such success was the reward of one whose hand aided
every struggle, and whose heart sympathized in every care.

From your graceful and accomplished taste, I early learned that
affection for literature which has exercised so large an influence
over the pursuits of my life; and you who were my first guide, were my
earliest critic. Do you remember the summer days, which seemed to me
so short, when you repeated to me those old ballads with which Percy