University of Virginia Library

PREFACE.

The tale of the Forsaken was written in the early
part of the year 1825, at which time the author contemplated
publishing it under the title of Paul Gordon.
The work was announced, and a chapter inserted in
a periodical of the day, accompanied by a notice of the
leading incidents of the plot, from the pen of the editor,
who had seen the manuscript. Circumstances, however,
prevented its publication, and lest any resemblance
between the Forsaken and some one of the
numerous family of fiction that has appeared since that
time, might give rise to a charge of plagiarism against
the writer, he deems it due to himself to make this
statement. This is not an age in which the advice of
Horace could be pursued with safety. Authors are too
numerous, and the facilities of publication too great, to
say nothing of the variableness of public taste, which frequently
pronounces a work out of date which was all
the rage a twelvemonth before.

An American writer who lays his scene in his native
country, has many difficulties to encounter. Neither
time nor place will allow him to indulge in fiction, and,

to use a hacknied figure, genius, so far from resembling
the eagle, and scaling the skies, is converted
into a plucked fowl, confined to the narrow limits of a
stable-yard, where the milkmaid and ploughman are
fully competent to judge, whether he picks up the
few scattered grains with decorum. These difficulties
it is perhaps necessary to encounter, fully to appreciate,
and I confess they were of a nature to delay the publication
of the present attempt; but the highly flattering
reception bestowed upon several minor productions of
the writer, has encouraged him again to trespass upon
the indulgence of the public.