mode are at liberty to exclude all that does not contribute to
theatrical effect or picturesque composition; their fidelity to the
period they select is towards the manners and costume, not towards the
precise order of events, the moral causes from which the events
proceeded, and the physical agencies by which they were influenced and
controlled. The plan thus adopted is unquestionably the more popular
and attractive, and, being favoured by the most illustrious writers of
historical romance, there is presumptive reason for supposing it to be
also that which is the more agreeable to the art of fiction.

But he who wishes to avoid the ground pre-occupied by others, and
claim in the world of literature some spot, however humble, which he
may "plough with his own heifer," will seek to establish himself not
where the land is the most fertile, but where it is the least
enclosed. So, when I first turned my attention to Historical Romance,
my main aim was to avoid as much as possible those fairer portions of
the soil that had been appropriated by the first discoverers. The
great author of Ivanhoe, and those amongst whom, abroad and at home,
his mantle was divided, had employed History to aid Romance; I
contented myself with the humbler task to employ Romance in the aid of
History,--to extract from authentic but neglected chronicles, and the
unfrequented storehouse of Archaeology, the incidents and details that
enliven the dry narrative of facts to which the general historian is
confined,--construct my plot from the actual events themselves, and
place the staple of such interest as I could create in reciting the
struggles, and delineating the characters, of those who had been the
living actors in the real drama. For the main materials of the three
Historical Romances I have composed, I consulted the original
authorities of the time with a care as scrupulous, as if intending to
write, not a fiction but a history. And having formed the best