“The title of the work, indeed, will persuade the reader to look rather for a true description of that mode of warfare, (the partisan,) than for any consecutive story, comprising the fortunes of a single personage. This he is solicited to keep in mind.” Again, “I have entitled it ‘The Partisan, a tale of the Revolution’—it was intended to be particularly such. The characters, many of them are names in the nation, familiar as our thoughts; [the author’s thoughts are very familiar.] Gates, Marion, De Kalb, and the rest, are all the property of our country.” He says, “My aim has been to give a story of events, rather than of persons”—that “A sober desire for history—the unwritten, the unconsidered, but veracious history—has been with me, in this labor, a sort of principle.” What, then, are we to presume from this, is to be the character of the work? Certainly, that it is to be almost entirely historical. Yet as it is entitled a tale, we might of course suppose that the fortunes of some individual, a fictitious person or one little known, was to be the _chain_, into which should be woven the adventures of the famous men—Marion, De Kalb, and others, whose names the author mentions. It is to be “a story of events, rather than of persons.” And what does the work prove to be? Not an event, in which either of these Generals was active, or in any great degree interested, is mentioned, except what is related in some of the one hundred pages, devoted to describing the battle and defeat of Gates by Cornwallis, which pages are almost the last of the work. To bring in this event, the author makes a long march with his hero, who, after all, was not engaged in the action. The story does not naturally bring us there: so, after all, it is only by a _forced march_, that any of the characters, set before us in the advertisement, are introduced. His censures upon Gates are severe. Since the laurels, won at Saratoga, were shed in the flight from Camden, that General has never been a favorite with his countrymen. There never were wanting hands to use the dagger against the fame of the fallen great; yet those are not to be envied, who thus can stab the slain.