Lovers Vows
A Play in Five Acts
by Mrs. Inchbald
from the German of Kotzebue




PREFACE.

IT would appear like affectation to offer an apology for any scenes or
passages omitted or added, in this play, different from the original:
its reception has given me confidence to suppose what I have done is
right; for Kotzebue's "Child of Love" in Germany, was never more
attractive than "Lovers' Vows" has been in England.

I could trouble my reader with many pages to disclose the motives which
induced me to alter, with the exception of a few common-place sentences
only, the characters of Count Cassel, Amelia, and Verdun the Butler--I
could explain why the part of the Count, as in the original, would
inevitably have condemned the whole Play,--I could inform my reader why
I have pourtrayed the Baron in many particulars different from the
German author, and carefully prepared the audience for the grand effect
of the last scene in the fourth act, by totally changing his conduct
towards his son as a robber--why I gave sentences of a humourous kind
to the parts of the two Cottagers--why I was compelled, on many
occasions, to compress the matter of a speech of three or four pages
into one of three or four lines--and why, in no one instance, I would
suffer my respect for Kotzebue to interfere with my profound respect
for the judgment of a British audience. But I flatter myself such a