University of Virginia Library

1. CHAPTER I.

As history receives a great portion of its dignity
and importance, not from the magnitude of
those events which it records, but from the rank
and consequence of the personages that figure
in the great drama of the world, so in like manner
doth every work of fiction depend upon the
same cause for its interest. Every word and
action of a legitimate monarch, for instance, is
matter of infinite moment, not only to the present
age, but to posterity; and it is consequently
carefully recorded in books of history.
If he take a ride, or go to church, it is considered,
especially the latter event, such a rarity
that nothing will do but it must be set down in
the chronicles.

Hence the vast advantages accruing to an
author from a discreet choice of his characters,

whose actions, provided they are persons of a
proper rank, may be both vulgar and insignificant,
without either tiring or disgusting the
reader. The hero, provided he be right royal,
or even noble, may turn his palace into a brothel,
or commit the most paltry meannesses,
without losing his character; and the
heroine, if she be only of sufficient rank,
may, by virtue of her prerogative, swear like a
fisherwoman, without being thought in the least
vulgar. The most delicate and virtuous female,
properly imbued with a taste for the extempore
historical novel, does not mind being
introduced, by a popular author, into the company
of strumpets, pimps, and their dignified employers,
whose titles and patents of nobility give
them the privilege of doing things that would
disgrace the vulgar, who, poor souls, have no
way of becoming tolerably respectable, but by
conforming to the common decencies of life. So
also, a Duke of Buckingham, a Sir Charles Sedley,
or any other distinguished person, historically
witty, may be made by an author as
coarse, flat, and vulgar in his conversations, as the
said author himself, who puts the words into his
mouth, and, ten to one, the reader will think he is
banqueting on the quintessence of refined wit
and humour. A Sheffield may be made to talk
about his titled mistresses to his valet, as if he
were the lowest bully of a brothel; and yet readers,
who would shrink with disgust from the latter,
will chance to admire the former, simply from the
difference between the rank of the two persons.
Not to multiply particular instances, we may lay
it down as a general rule, that the dignity of
actions, the refinement of morals, and the sharpness
of wit, is exactly in proportion to the rank
and quality of the characters to whom they appertain.

For the reasons above stated, we here take
special occasion to remind the reader, that most
of our principal characters are fully entitled, by
their rank and dignity, to the privilege of being
dull and vulgar, without forfeiting his respect or
admiration. The Heer Piper, though not actually
a king himself, is the representative of a
king. He also held, or at least claimed, sovereign
sway over a space of country as large at least as
Great Britain, and was as little subject to any
laws, except of his own making, as the most
mortal tyrant in Christendom. We see, therefore,
no particular reason why he may not be
allowed to swear, without being thought indecent,

as well as Elizabeth, Harry the Fourth, or
any other swearing potentate on record.

We also claim the benefit of sublimity for
the effusions of Bombie of the Frizzled Head;
who, as before stated, was the wife and daughter
of an African monarch, superior in state and
dignity to any European legitimate; because
he could actually sell his subjects, whereas the
latter are only entitled to pick their pockets. If
it be objected that she is a slave, we would observe,
that this misfortune, this reverse of fate,
only renders her the more sublimely interesting,
as exhibiting in her person an awful example of
the uncertainty of all human grandeur. Kings
and queens have often been bought and sold;
and, as a king of Cyprus was once publicly
exhibited for sale in the market of Rome, so may
it possibly happen, before some of our readers
die, that others, of the race which has so long
domineered over mankind, may be made to
exhibit examples equally striking, of the mutability
of fortune. We caution our readers also
to bear in mind, that that likely fellow Cupid
has also a portion of the blood royal in his veins,
the effects of which, we trust, will be strikingly
exemplified in the course of this history.

If, after all, the reader should object that this

is mere secondhand royalty, and be inclined to
pronounce the awful condemnation of vulgarity
upon us and our book, we here take this opportunity
to pledge ourselves, in the course of a few
succeeding chapters, to introduce some genuine
legitimate monarchs, full-blooded, and with
pedigrees equal to that of a Turkish horse, or
the renowned Eclipse himself, meaning not,
however, to detract either from the merits of
Mr. Van Ranst or his horse, by this latter
assertion.