PHILIP SYDNEY ARUNDEL, Esq. OF GRAY'S INN, LONDON. MY DEAR Arundel, Contrary to your friendly advice, and in direct opposition to your excellent admonitions, I have dared to publish the work to which this letter is prefixed; and I feel that I am bound to give you some good and efficient reason for departing from the usual tenor of my way, you being perfectly aware, that in all important matters hitherto, I have been most willingly influenced, by your taste, judgment, and experience. I may, perchance, also, enact mine own fadladeen; in which case, if my candour will not extenuate my disobedience, truly I cannot help it. B 2 You know, that one of my reasons for publishing this work, is a desire-and why should I conceal it?-of becoming an author; but the principal is, as you well know, an eager wish to rescue from oblivion the manners and traditions of my native land, a portion of the kingdom most assuredly not a little fertile in interesting occurrences, as connected with bygone times; and affording, as I have elsewhere observed, no scanty stock of materials for the foundation of fictitious narrative. That, this purpose is a laudable one, nobody can dispute; but that its execution, in the present instance, is commensurate, either with its worthiness or capability, I am among the first to deny. I feel that I have not done justice to my subject; but I feel also, that there is no one at present among the few of my countrymen, who put forth any pretensions to literature, that could do justice to a theme so boundless and so difficult, as the delinea |