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[Illustration: DR. MIDDLETON.]
"Loin d'aimer la guerre, il l'abhorre;
En triomphant même il déplore
Les désastres qu'elle produit
Et, couronné par la victoire,
II gémit de sa propre gloire.
Si la paix n'en est pas le fruit."
Written for the new edition of "Thaddeus of Warsaw," forming one ofthe series called "The Standard Novels."
To such readers alone who, by the sympathy of a social taste, fall inwith any blameless fashion of the day, and, from an amiable interest,also, in whatever may chance to afford them innocent pleasure, wouldfain know something more about an author whose works have broughtthem that gratification than the cold letter of a mere literarypreface usually tells: to such readers this—something of anegotistical—epistle is addressed.
For, in beginning the republication of a regular series of thenovels, or, as they have been more properly called, biographicalromances, of which I have been the author, it has been considereddesirable to make certain additions to each work, in the form of afew introductory pages and scattered notes, illustrative of theorigin of the tale, of the historical events referred to in it, andof the actually living characters who constitute its personages, withsome account, also, of the really local scenery described; thusgiving, it is thought, a double zest to the entertainment of thereader, by bringing him into a previous acquaintance with the personshe is to meet in the book, and making him agreeably familiar with thecountry through which he is to travel in their company. Indeed, thesocial taste of the times has lately fully shown how advantageous thelike conversational disclosures have proved to the recentrepublications of the celebrated "Waverley Novels," by the chief ofnovel-writers; and in the new series of the admirable naval tales bythe distinguished American novelist, both of whom paid to the mother-country the gratifying tribute of making it their birthplace.
Such evidences in favor of an argument could not fail to persuade meto undertake the desired elucidating task; feeling, indeed,particularly pleased to adopt, in my turn, a successful example fromthe once Great Unknown—now the not less great avowed author of theWaverley Novels, in the person of Sir Walter Scott, who did me thehonor to adopt the style or class of novel of which "Thaddeus ofWarsaw" was the first,—a class which, uniting the personages andfacts of real history or biography with a combining and illustrativemachinery of the imagination, formed a new species of writing in thatday, and to which Madame de Staël and others have given theappellation of "an epic in prose." The day of its appearance is nowpretty far back: for "Thaddeus of Warsaw" (a tale founded on Polishheroism) and the "Scottish Chiefs" (a romance grounded on Scottishheroism) were both published in England, and translated into variouslanguages abroad, many years before the literary wonder of Scotlandgave to the world his transcendent story of Waverley, forming a mostimpressive historical picture of the last struggle of the papist, butgallant, branch of the Stuarts for the British throne. [Footnote: Itwas on