PREFACE. MANY years having elapsed, since this, my second, at tempt at historical romance made its appearance, in a period of civil and commercial darkness and depression, and the work itself having been long out of print and withheld from the book market, I have determined to reproduce it, thoroughly revised and corrected, and in some passages re-written, in the hope that it will not be unacceptable to those of my readers, who, familiar with my later works, have not chanced to fall upon this, which was, perhaps, the first to procure for me, however small, a share of popular favor. The faults, to which a fair and generally favorable criticism chiefly objected in it, not, I now think, without cause, a certain turgidity of style, and the length and involution of the sentences, have been repaired, as far as possible; and, while the plot and incidents of the narrative, and more particularly the scheme and sentiment of the work, have been unchanged, much of the language and not a few of the thoughts have been altered, I trust, for the better. So that I hope, with some confidence, the picture of England's Great Protector-in whom, considering the time at which I wrote, I was, I believe, one of the first to discern and to describe, a man misguided by his own overboiling zeal, rather than a misleader of other men; a chief, driven onward as the instrument of a paramount ne cessity forcing him to climb the bloody ladder of ambition, rather than a demagogue, a hypocrite and an usurper; a sovereign, patriotic, able, energetic, moderate, and just, as any who has sat on England's throne; and less bloody than any, who has won it by his unassisted will and greatness-will be found, in the main, unflattered as undistorted, true, and life-like. The features of the portrait are unaltered; the atmosphere, through which, some twenty years ago, I discerned what, it seemed to me, was the true aspect of this great and wondrous man, is the same now, to my perceptions, as it was then. I have no page to tear, no sentence to erase. It is the tints and tones of the coloring, which will be found changed, I hope improved, by the retouchings, which the experience of years and the use of letters -in which, when this volume was produced, I was but a novice-have since shown me to be more than desirable. With some confidence and much gratitude, for the pa tient and continued indulgence which my labors have con. stantly experienced at the hands of the public, I commit this work to their gentle censure, and subscribe myself their servant, THE AUTHOR. |