This Dramatic Piece, as noticed in its title-page, was composed
in 1795–6. It lay nearly from that time till within the last two
or three months unregarded among my papers, without being
mentioned even to my most intimate friends. Having, however,
impressions upon my mind which made me unwilling to destroy
the MS., I determined to undertake the responsibility of publishing
it during my own life, rather than impose upon my successors
the task of deciding its fate. Accordingly it has been
revised with some care; but, as it was at first written, and is
now published, without any view to its exhibition upon the stage,
not the slightest alteration has been made in the conduct of the
story, or the composition of the characters; above all, in respect
to the two leading Persons of the Drama, I felt no inducement to
make any change. The study of human nature suggests this
awful truth, that, as in the trials to which life subjects us, sin
and crime are apt to start from their very opposite qualities, so
are there no limits to the hardening of the heart, and the perversion
of the understanding to which they may carry their slaves.
During my long residence in France, while the revolution was
rapidly advancing to its extreme of wickedness, I had frequent
opportunities of being an eye-witness of this process, and it was
while that knowledge was fresh upon my memory, that the
Tragedy of “The Borderers” was composed.
