this work extends over a space of some years, and embraces the variety
of characters necessary to a true delineation of events. The story,
therefore, cannot have precisely that order of interest found in
fictions strictly and genuinely dramatic, in which (to my judgment at
least) the time ought to be as limited as possible, and the characters
as few;--no new character of importance to the catastrophe being
admissible towards the end of the work. If I may use the word Epic in
its most modest and unassuming acceptation, this Fiction, in short,
though indulging in dramatic situations, belongs, as a whole, rather to
the Epic than the Dramatic school.

I cannot conclude without rendering the tribute of my praise and homage
to the versatile and gifted Author of the beautiful Tragedy of Rienzi.
Considering that our hero be the same--considering that we had the same
materials from which to choose our several stories--I trust I shall
be found to have little, if at all, trespassed upon ground previously
occupied. With the single exception of a love-intrigue between a
relative of Rienzi and one of the antagonist party, which makes the
plot of Miss Mitford's Tragedy, and is little more than an episode in my
Romance, having slight effect on the conduct and none on the fate of the
hero, I am not aware of any resemblance between the two works; and even
this coincidence I could easily have removed, had I deemed it the least
advisable:--but it would be almost discreditable if I had nothing that
resembled a performance possessing so much it were an honour to imitate.

In fact, the prodigal materials of the story--the rich and exuberant
complexities of Rienzi's character--joined to the advantage possessed by
the Novelist of embracing all that the Dramatist must reject (Thus the
slender space permitted to the Dramatist does not allow Miss Mitford to
be very faithful to facts; to distinguish between Rienzi's earlier and