University of Virginia Library

PREFACE.

I would freely give any sophist the
best of my two hats to satisfy my mind
in one thing. I am mightily troubled
about a literary alternative. The question
is this. Shall I lament the perverse
taste of the times, or candidly
confess my own barrenness of invention?

A sprightly moral-mending Frenchman
deplores the loss of fairyism. It
was to lively imaginations a source of
innocent pleasure, and the handsomest
way in the world of forming agreeable
dreams. The fairy which protected
Alcidonis, and the familiar demon of
Socrates, might furnish hints of harmless
narration to a fertile fancy.

Marmontel made this observation in
all the festivity of French vivacity...
But I, who am not French, either in
versatility or by nation, feel myself
possessed of abundance of excellent
morals, but consolidated gravity. So
it would seem that I am more capable
of exhibiting my talent by dealing out
saturnine opinions, than pleasing a novel
reader by a sublime anticlimax of
ingenious description. Yet, may be,
like certain political, poetical, mercantile
and amorous geniuses, I am a little
mistaken in my own character.

I lament the want of machinery in
modern novels. But most of all I
grieve for the extinction of the eastern
manner: There could I have shown
myself in all my glory; there could I
have fired away in periods sonorous,

lofty, musical and unmeaning, and
proved myself a Confucius or Xixzoffou
by the orientality of sentiments, grand,
obscure, magnificent and incomprehensible.
Genii and giants, magii and
magicians, invincible castles and palaces
of enchantment, should have spontaneously
arisen from one stroke of
my immortal wand. Groves of coral
should have been visible in the transparent
stream of my descriptions, and
rocks of diamond should have blazed in
every page.

Alas! that the perverse fashion of
the present day should stretch forth the
hand of interdiction to bar my passage
to glory, honour and to a long list of
convenient et-cæteras.

I am loth to find fault with the world,
because I am persuaded the world must
and will maintain me. To despise
myself for lack of faculty, is mending
the matter very little. Would it disconcert
the economy of a critical countenane,
to say, I have taken for my
own use and behoof, a style peculiar
to myself? It may be denominated
the COMPOSITE style, as it partakes
of the English relation, and the French
dialogue. To bring about this end requires
a novelty: That the character
be so strongly designated that the reader
may know who is the speaker, not
only by the insertion of said he and
said she, but, in some small degree,
by the uniformity of the speaker's sentiments.
But alas! here is another
mortifying requisition. To effect this
thing demands genius. Some of the

sagacious and indefatigable commentators
on the divine Shakespeare, have,
to their eternal honour, discovered, that
if the names of his dramas were omitted,
a reader of common capacity might
discern for whom any speech was designed;
and for this plain reason, because
the characters and sentiments
walk on through five acts, and strut
their hour upon the stage in the most
amicable sympathy.

Modern novelists, indeed, have not
been so happy as to outrun Mr. Shakespeare
in this literary race. But, leaving
both sentiment and person as above or
beneath their comprehension, have endeavoured
with bold attempt to make
a verbal distinction of character....
which is a difference known only by
provincial accent; false English; fa

vourite words; idiomatical barbarity;
vernacular vulgarity; insipid tautaulogy;
discordant technicals; disgusting
prophanity; domestic prejudices, or
foreign unintelligibility.

I have not the least suspicion that
any part of the following tale will be
ranked with Shakespeare's art of
designating characters; (except a few
lucky hits here and there!) notwithstanding
which I have very often left
out, as supernumerary, the said he and
replied she, common to most retailers of
dialogue!

Thus it comes to pass, that because
I am only an untutored, though self-sufficient
historian of fiction, I am unwarrantably
forbidden by the corrupt
minds of idle readers, to introduce

sufficient historian of fiction, I am unwarrantably
forbidden, by the corrupt
minds of idle readers, to introduce
fairies and enchanters as a help to
enable me—to make a book. I might
also complain that I am denied the assistance
of the heathen mythology or
the Rosicrusian system. How handy
would these have been to have extricated
a hero or heroine from the
snares of embarrassment and incertitude!
And how often, for want of a
god, goddess, sylphid or gnome, do our
modern writers of elaborate adventures
make the most wretched, deplorable,
blundering, eclaircissements, catastrophes
and denouements, because we
are denied these happy means to produce
conclusions. I have in the words
of some authors been witness to a surprise,
which was not surprising, and

---

x

have seen discoveries which were
known for a hundred pages before
they were made.

It would have been a violent presumption
in me, who am yet without
celebrity, to have designed a new
creation of supernatural agents; a
novel machinery. 'Tis a task for a
Homer, the framer of the Rosy Cross,
and for the maker of Caliban. Wherefore,
finding it inexpedient to soar on
the pinions of invention, I will, as I
have done, content myself by a moderate
excursion into the region of style.

What is a novel without novelty?
Is it not what is every day presented
from the polite bookseller to the hands
of the fancy-loving fair? Is it not a
second edition of scenes and conversa

tions to be viewed and perused by those
EYES, which are worthy to inspire enthusiasm
in the bosom of the poet, and
to exile gravity from the heart of the
Philosopher?....Eyes more happily
employed in darting the smiles of encouragement
to obsequious merit, and
in beaming complacency to the love-excited
passion of honest virtue. Eyes
which had better guide the fingers of
industry through the mazes of tapestry,
and teach the stitches of embroidery to
rival the tints of the painter.

There is one truth concerning novels,
which is in our time pretty well estabblished;
none I presume will controvert
the authenticity of my remark,
that the foundation of these elegant
fabricks is laid on the passion of love.
I except the wonderful history of Robinson
Crusoe.

Whatever precepts or examples are
given for the government of the young
inclinations, the tender affections, the
infantine offspring of the heart, are
highly important, and merit a scrutinizing
inspection. The passions `grow
with our growth, and strengthen with
our strength;'[1] it is a duty therefore to
discourage the unruly, and curb the
headstrong. It is incumbent upon the
other hand, and which stands beyond
the reach of argument, that to allure
the untutored mind to the practice of
virtue by an example which is rewarded,
and to deter it from vice by the
representation of its misery, are means
often found adequate to win vivacity to
the side of prudence, and fix sensibility
in the cause of discretion. Thus far I
am the friend of novels, and thus far I
am a novelist. The field of this species

of writing is extensive, and it would be
worth while to see how the different
romance and novel writers in Europe
have excelled in their different branches,
and by a comparison of their various
merits determine who are the strongest
in genius, satire, knowledge, taste, style
and pathos.

But I have already written a desultory
preface three times longer than I
intended. I will therefore for the sake
of brevity condense my thoughts upon
this important point in the following

SCALE OF NOVELISTS.

                 

				Teste.	Teste.
Authors.	Genius	Satire.	Knowledge	Intellig.	Imagin	Style.	Pathos.
Cervantes	19	19	17	16	18	15	13
Rabelais	15	18	17	15	13	10	7
Le Sage	14	17	12	12	14	11	6
Rousseau	16	10	13	15	15	17	16
Fenelon	16	7	15	16	14	17	14
Marmontel	14	10	11	15	15	17	16
Smollet	11	16	10	9	14	6	5

                     

Richardson	19	11	12	16	17	17	18
Swift	18	19	17	18	18	17	14
De Foe	11	4	10	10	15	6	10
Sterne	18	15	14	14	16	17	19
Miss Burney	14	11	12	16	16	16	17
Miss Smith	13	9	12	15	15	14	9
Johnson	18	15	19	18	18	19	15
Gesner	10	6	11	15	15	16	16
Mad. Genlis	12	10	10	12	13	15	12
Dr. Dodd	11	9	12	10	13	10	13
Voltaire	18	17	18	16	18	16	13