Were I, therefore, wise, perhaps I should not again launch forth in the hazardous craft of authorship. But as the illustrious Sheffield did not refrain from doing this, though all the reasons he has enumerated forbade him, so I, having perhaps as much leisure left as his Grace had when he ventured once more on the ocean of letters, presume to follow his example. Pray heaven I may, like him, safely return into port!

To pursue the figure I have adopted, I feel like one of those ancient mariners, who, after having passed much of their time in making voyages (whether prosperous or not), do not like to be laid up on shore for the rest of their lives, short as they may be. Their fancy represents that there may still remain some creek or coast which they have not explored; and not willing that their bark should be moored in idleness, they once more weigh anchor, and give her sails to the breeze. In plain English, though tired of business, yet more tired of having nothing to do, I, like the nobleman I have quoted, once more enlist "Amidst the adventurous rovers of the pen."

"Very good," you may reply; "but what have I to do with all this, that you chose to address me upon it ?"

More perhaps than you are aware of. For though a name can do little for a work which cannot do any

thing for itself, yet if that work can stand at all of itself, such a name as yours, like a Corinthian capital, may give that elegance and ornament to the shaft which are necessary to make it complete.

This I should say, if there were no other reason to make me wish to inscribe this labour of mine to your ladyship. But, on its perusal, all my readers (at least all who know you) will perceive ample and appropriate reason for the wish. For who that may take the trouble of investigating the character of Bertha, in the following pages, and remembers the graces of your young years-but, above all, who that has witnessed the delightful affection and mutual esteem that have so long united you and your revered and noble father-but must allow that the delineation of such a portrait is most appropriately dedicated to you? How justly might I not also extend this still farther, and, following you from girlhood to maturer years, give the same reason for recommending the character of Lady Hungerford to your protection. At all events, I have a secret, but deep-felt pleasure, in thinking, that in being allowed thus to address you, a friendship which has gilded so many years of my life, and has been marked with such kindness and condescension on your part, may be told to the world; and, if so, what can it tell of me but honour?

As to the work itself, if it beguile an hour of your

time, by any thing like amusement; or, if in thus addressing it to you, I may cause you to believe that I have been as constant in my devotion to you (though in a different way) as Clifford was to Bertha; I shall be richly paid for the care it has cost

me.

With this I am, as I have long-long been-your most obliged and attached friend and servant,

THE AUTHOR.

Okeover Hall, Staffordshire.

THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE.

My motives (if the world care for an author's motives) for engaging in this work, I have, in part, detailed in the preceding epistle to the noble person there addressed.

The work has at least innocently, if not usefully, filled a great deal of leisure, and adds one more Picture of Human Life to those which (with whatever success) I have already presumed to offer to the world. One, however, seemed to be still wanting to the series, and that was the impressions made by men and manners on a very young and unsophisticated mind, just starting into life, beginning even from his boyish days; and this, the total inexperience of the hero, and the very varied knowledge of those whom I may call his tutors, gave me, I thought, a good opportunity to accomplish.

For the better promotion of my object, it was necessary that the view taken should not be the mere birdseye view of a man surveying the world at his ease,

from a comfortable retreat, but that he should be himself an actor, encountering and overcoming difficulties, and earning by exertion and reflection whatever knowledge he might acquire.

Then again, as in all epics, whether in prose or verse, some great passion must predominate and pervade the whole, in order to produce and continue the action, what could I do better than to make the hero, as a lover, the mirror of constancy? Such love at least teaches this lesson, among the thousands taught by this all-pervading passion-that, whatever its good or ill success, where the object is well chosen, and the love pure, it ennobles the mind, and keeps it stainless, delicate, and honourable, through all vicissitudes.

The story of Sir Harry Melford does not contradict, but rather confirms this, as it was his pride as much as his affection that was so wounded.*

All this, however, at once stamps on the work the character of a novel, and throws on the author the responsibility of a novelist.

What that responsibility is, I am not going to examine, in this novel-writing age, when it must long ago have been settled; especially as I find it done to my hand, by a shrewd and able critic, in a manner so concentrated, and yet so comprehensive, that nothing is wanting to make it complete.

"These features," says the critic, referring to man

* See Vol. IV. p. 214.