+---------------------------------------------------+ |Some typographical errors have been corrected; | |a list follows the text. (etext transcriber's note)| +---------------------------------------------------+ DON SEBASTIAN; OR, THE HOUSE OF BRAGANZA. J. M‘CREERY, Printer, Black-Horse-Court, Fleet-Street, London. DON SEBASTIAN; OR, THE HOUSE OF BRAGANZA. AN HISTORICAL ROMANCE. IN FOUR VOLUMES. BY MISS ANNA MARIA PORTER. AUTHOR OF THE HUNGARIAN BROTHERS. Take Physic, Pomp! Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel, So shalt thou shake the superflux to them, And shew the Heavens more just. KING LEAR. VOL. I. LONDON: PRINTED FOR LONGMAN, HURST, REES, AND ORME, PATERNOSTER ROW. 1809. PREFACE. The name of Don Sebastian immediately recals to every historical reader, a character, which youth, faults, virtues, and misfortunes, have rendered highly interesting: I selected such a one for my Hero, from the wish of shewing how “sweet are the uses of adversity.” If I may be so fortunate as to instruct and to amuse at the same time, the utmost of my literary ambition will be gratified. It has been my aim to keep as close to historical records, as was consistent with a work wherein imagination is allowed to make up for the deficiencies of actual tradition. In some places I have been obliged to antedate an event, and to mix other motives of action with such as were avowed by the persons then acting on the great theatre of Europe; but I have scrupulously avoided slandering the illustrious dead, and am not conscious of having materially altered any well-known portrait. Some readers may be offended or wearied with the frequent use which I have made of religious tenets; to them I can only offer one apology;--I had no other way of reconciling the conduct of Catholic powers, with what I have been obliged to suppose, their conviction of Don Sebastian’s identity when he re-appeared at Venice; and as his chief calamity was the product of a bigotted attachment to the doctrines of Rome, I could scarcely make that calamity effect the necessary revolution in his general character, without changing also the nature of his religious opinions.