The design of the narrative which follows, contemplates, in nearly equal degree, the picturesque and the historical. It belongs to a class of writings with which the world has been long since made familiar, through a collection of the greatest interest, the body of which continues to expand, and which has been entitled the "Romance of History." This name will justly apply to the present sketches, yet must not be construed to signify any large or important departure, in the narrative, from the absolute records of the Past. The romance here is not suffered to supersede the history. On the contrary, the design of the writer has been simply to supply the deficiencies of the record. Where the author, in this species of writing, has employed history, usually, as a mere loop, upon which to hang his lively fancies and audacious inventions, embodying in his narrative as small a portion of the chronicle as possible, I have been content to reverse the process, making the fiction simply tributary, and always subordinate to the fact. I have been studious to preserve all the vital details of the event, as embodied in the record, and have only ventured my own "graffings" upon it in those portions of the history which exhibited a certain baldness in their details, and seemed to demand the helping agency of art. In thus interweaving the history with the fiction, I have been solicitous always of those proprieties and of that _vraisemblance_, in the introduction of new details, which are essential to the chief characteristics of the history; seeking equally to preserve the general integrity of the record from which I draw my materials, and of that art which aims to present them in a costume the most picturesque. My labor has been not to make, but to perfect, a history; not to invent facts, but to trace them out to seemingly inevitable results;--to take the premise and work out the problem;--recognize the meagre record which affords simply a general outline; and endeavor, by a severe induction, to supply its details and processes. I have been at no such pains to disguise the chronicle, as will prevent the reader from separating,--should he desire to do so,--the _certain_ from the _conjectural_; and yet, I trust, that I have succeeded in so linking the two together, as to prevent the lines of junction from obtruding themselves offensively upon his consciousness. Upon the successful prosecution of this object, apart from the native interest which the subject itself possesses, depends all the merit of the performance. It is by raising the tone of the history, warming it with the hues of fancy, and making it dramatic by the continued exercise of art, rather than by any actual violation of its recorded facts, that I have endeavored to awaken interest. To bring out such portions of the event as demand elevation--to suppress those which are only cumbrous, and neither raise the imposing, nor relieve the unavoidable; and to