Nature had been very prodigal to the Captain; but whether from the extreme vivacity of his genius, or whether from a more hidden cause, it is vain to search, the Captain, with all his debts, owed nothing to art. Even his orthography was of the happiest originality. The Editor, therefore, felt the peculiar delicacy of his task. Had he printed the MS. as it came, with the bloom upon it, from the Captain’s hand, it was to be feared that in this age of light reading—which reading, like pills, is made to be bolted, not, like bread, to be carefully chewed—not one out of a hundred would have had the necessary patience to go through with it. To suppress the work for any defect of style would have been to sacrifice, as the Editor considered, a great national good. After much deliberation there appeared to him a golden mean. It struck the Editor that he might, in very many instances, give the style of Whitefeather, whilst in very many more he might heighten, and adorn, and vary it from his own poor resources. Still, be it understood, all the _facts_ are Whitefeather’s; the Editor only lays claim to certain tropes, and metaphors, and inimitable felicities of expression, to which, probably, it might be considered indelicate were he more emphatically to allude. Indeed, he has only touched upon the theme in the way of business; as there may be, even at this moment, many noble and distinguished authors who, “wanting the accomplishment” of grammar, are yet desirous of appearing in print. (To these, in parenthesis, the author addresses himself; assuring the tadpole _literati_ that he finishes tales, histories, biographies, poems, etc., with all despatch, and with the most inviolable secrecy. His address is in a former page, and Breakneck Steps is too well known to all who would mount Parnassus.) To the publishers of the remains of Captain Whitefeather the Editor has to express his warmest gratitude. The Editor blushes for the intelligence of the trade, when he states that this national work, like the hitherto inimitable _Robinson Crusoe_, was offered in the humblest manner to twenty houses, and, sometimes coldly, sometimes sulkily, sometimes indignantly refused.