Dedication is intended to convey.

Yours, etc.

E. L. B.
LONDON, April 23, 1840.



ADVERTISEMENT TO THE FIRST EDITION.

COULD I prescribe to the critic and to the public, I would wish that this
work might be tried by the rules rather of poetry than prose, for
according to those rules have been both its conception and its execution;
and I feel that something of sympathy with the author's design is
requisite to win indulgence for the superstitions he has incorporated
with his tale, for the floridity of his style, and the redundance of his
descriptions. Perhaps, indeed, it would be impossible, in attempting to
paint the scenery and embody some of the Legends of the Rhine, not to
give (it may be, too loosely) the reins to the imagination, or to escape
the influence of that wild German spirit which I have sought to transfer
to a colder tongue.

I have made the experiment of selecting for the main interest of my work
the simplest materials, and weaving upon them the ornaments given chiefly
to subjects of a more fanciful nature. I know not how far I have
succeeded, but various reasons have conspired to make this the work,
above all others that I have written, which has given me the most delight
(though not unmixed with melancholy) in producing, and in which my mind
for the time has been the most completely absorbed. But the ardour of