ADVERTISEMENT.
The first story in this collection is founded upon a passage
from an ancient monkish legend, which the lover of antiquarian
lore will most probably remember. The treatment of
the subject is, however, entirely my own; and the circumstance
in the history of the two young men, upon which the catastrophe
depends, is too frequent among the thoughtless of every nation
to make it the peculiar property of any. The strifes between the
rival moral principles of good and evil, have also been a subject
of frequent celebration in the form of allegory; though, I believe,
that, in this respect, my claim to originality will also be undisputed.
In the character of the venerable guest of Matilda, it
will be seen that I have ventured upon a faint delineation of one
of the apostles, and that I have moreover presumed to suggest a
notion of their continued toils on earth in the cause of heaven.
Such a theory does not, it appears to me, seem altogether incompatible
with the history of the strifes of good and evil, as afforded
by the sacred volume; and, indeed, must somewhat help us in the
hope which we entertain, according to the holy promise, of the
final and complete triumph of the former. I trust, in what I have
done, I will not be found to have trespassed beyond the limits of
propriety. The other tales, with, perhaps, a single exception,
belong to the same moral imaginative class with the first. They
have been written at various periods in my brief career of authorship.
Two of them, it may be well to state, were published
with other titles than they bear in this collection. The change
was made in consequence of my discovering subsequently that
similar titles had been employed by other writers, which might,
to the casual reader, suggest an idea of identity between them,
which exists neither in the subject, nor the mode of treatment.
They are only republished in this collection as they belong properly
to the classification which distinguishes the work.
