egotism appropriates in the book are some occasional remarks, the
natural result of practical experience. With the life or the character,
the adventures or the humours, the errors or the good qualities, of
Maltravers himself, I have nothing to do, except as the narrator and
inventor.

* In some foreign journal I have been much amused by a credulity of this
latter description, and seen the various adventures of Mr. Maltravers
gravely appropriated to the embellishment of my own life, including the
attachment to the original of poor Alice Darvil; who now, by the way,
must be at least seventy years of age, with a grandchild nearly as old
as myself.

E. B. L.



A WORD TO THE READER
PREFIXED TO THE FIRST EDITION OF 1837.

THOU must not, my old and partial friend, look into this work for that
species of interest which is drawn from stirring adventures and a
perpetual variety of incident. To a Novel of the present day are
necessarily forbidden the animation, the excitement, the bustle, the
pomp, and the stage effect which History affords to Romance. Whatever
merits, in thy gentle eyes, /Rienzi/, or /The Last Days of Pompeii/, may
have possessed, this Tale, if it please thee at all, must owe that happy
fortune to qualities widely different from those which won thy favour to
pictures of the Past. Thou must sober down thine imagination, and
prepare thyself for a story not dedicated to the narrative of