PREFACE
THE PUBLIC are here presented with the last literary attempt
of an author, whose fame has been uncommonly extensive,
and whose talents have probably been most admired,
by the persons by whom talents are estimated with
the greatest accuracy and discrimination. There are few, to
whom her writings could in any case have
given pleasure,
that would have wished that this fragment should have
been suppressed, because it is a fragment. There is a sentiment,
very dear to minds of taste and imagination, that
finds a melancholy delight in contemplating these unfinished
productions of genius, these sketches of what, if they
had been filled up in a manner adequate to the writer's
conception, would perhaps have given a new impulse to
the manners of a world.
The purpose and structure of the following work, had
long formed a favourite subject of meditation with its author,
and she judged them capable of producing an important
effect.
The composition had been in progress for a period
of twelve months. She was anxious to do justice to her
conception, and recommenced and revised the manuscript
several different times. So much of it as is here given to
the public, she was far from considering as finished, and, in
a letter to a friend directly written on this subject, she
says, "I am perfectly aware that some of the incidents
ought to be transposed, and heightened by more harmonious
shading; and I wished in some degree to avail myself
of criticism, before I began to adjust my events into a
story, the outline of which I had sketched in
my mind."*
The only friends to whom the author communicated her manuscript,
were Mr. Dyson, the translator of the Sorcerer, and
the present editor; and it was impossible for the most inexperienced
author to display a stronger desire of profiting by
the censures and sentiments that might be suggested.+
In revising these sheets for the press, it was necessary for
the editor, in some places, to connect the more finished
parts
with the pages of an older copy, and a line or two in addition
sometimes appeared requisite for that purpose. Wherever
such a liberty has been taken, the additional phrases will be
found inclosed in brackets; it being the editor's most earnest
desire to intrude nothing of himself into the work, but to give
to the public the words, as well as ideas, of the real author.
What follows in the ensuing pages, is not a preface regularly
drawn out by the author, but merely hints for a preface,
which, though never filled up in the manner the writer intended,
appeared to be worth preserving.
W. GODWIN.