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DEDICATORY EPISTLE.
xxiii

diseases, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer" as ourselves. The tenor, therefore, of their affections and feelings, must have borne the same general proportion to our own.

It follows, therefore, that of the materials which he has to use in a romance, or fictitious composition, such as I have ventured to attempt, the author will find that a great proportion, both of language and manners, are as proper to the present time as to those in which he has laid his time of action. The freedom of choice which this allows him, is therefore much greater, and the difficulty of his task much more diminished, than at first appears. To take an illustration from a sister art, the antiquarian details may be said to represent the peculiar features of a landscape under delineation of the pencil. His feudal tower must arise in due majesty; the fi-

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