In dedicating to you the following pages, I am moved not more by private friendship and regard, than by esteem for your abilities, and respect for your many and varied acquirements. It might seem somewhat presumptuous in me to call for your acceptance or seek your approbation of this work, when not only your general acquaintance with, but your profound knowledge of, almost every branch of modern and ancient literature qualify and might be expected to prompt you to minute and severe criticism. But I have always found, in regard to my own works at least, that those who were best fitted to judge were the most inclined to be lenient, and that men of high talent and deep learning condescended to tolerate, if not to approve, that which was assailed by very small critics, or scoffed at by men who, calling themselves humorists, omitted the word "_bad_" before the appellation in which they gloried. To your good humor, then, I leave the work, and will only add a few words in regard to the object and construction of the story. We have in the present day romances of many various kinds; and I really know not how to class my present effort. It is not a love-story, for any thing like that which was the great moving power of young energies--at least in less material days than these--has very little part in the book. I cannot call it a novel without a hero, because it is altogether dedicated to the adventures of one man. I cannot call it a romance without a heroine, because there is a woman in it, and a woman with whom I am myself very much in love. I cannot call it absolutely a historical romance, because there are several characters which are not historical, and I am afraid I have taken a few little liberties with Chronology which, were she as prudish a dame as some of the middle-aged ladies whom I could mention, would either earn me a _box_ of the ear, or produce so much scandal that my good name would be lost forever. Plague take the months and the days! they are always getting in one's way. But I do believe I have been very reverent and respectful to their grandmothers the years, and, with due regard for precedence and the Court Guide, have not put any of the latter out of her proper place.