Jededian Vincent Huntingtas

"And old Sylvanus selfe bethinkes not, what
To think of wight so fayre; but gazing stood
In doubt to deem her borne of earthly brood:
Sometimes dame Venus self he seems to see;
But Venus never had so sober mood:

Sometimes Diana he her takes to be;

But misseth bow and shaftes, and buskins to her knee."
THE FAERIE QUEENE, B. 1, c. vi, ST. XVI.

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. I.

NEW-YORK:

D. APPLETON & COMPANY, 200 BROADWAY.

PHILADELPHIA:

GEO. S. APPLETON, 164 CHESNUT-STREET.

M.DCCC.XLIX.

ENTERED, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1849, by

D. APPLETON & COMPANY,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New-York.

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PREFACE.

It would seem that hardly any thing can be more misapplied than the pains which authors take in the prefaces of their books. Especially, to explain beforehand, in detail, the principles on which a work of fiction has been constructed, and the moral at which it aims, or to vindicate, in like manner, the probability of the incidents; to expose, in short, the mechanism, and announce the solution, of what ought to remain secret, as the stimulus of curiosity, or serve, by its unexpected development, to gratify the craving which in every work of imagination demands a worthy purpose;― this is to prove, in advance, that we do not understand our tools, or, at the very least, are dissatisfied with our achievement.

The greatest productions of the imagination-such as 'Cymbeline' or the Tempest,' for instance-never enjoyed this equivocal advantage of a key to their intent; it could, in fact, only have injured them; and if this be true of the works of that original genius which discovers for itself the moral and æsthetical maxims that guide its sublime deviations from routine, how much more must it hold in regard to those of inferior minds, whose highest claim (as in the case of the present author) is to have comprehended and imitated, at a humble distance, the genuine Masters.

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