Acknowledgment

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[Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1836,
by Harper & Brothers, in the Clerk's Office of the Southern
District of New-York.]

Acknowledgment

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TO
PROFESSOR LONGFELLOW,
THESE VOLUMES
ARE
RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED
BY
THE AUTHOR.

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PREFACE.

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The leading incidents upon which the present work
is founded, are chiefly historical.

With the pages of history, however, we have had to
do, only so far as they could be made subservient to
our tale, which does not profess to be, exclusively a
tale, or history, of the times to which it is referred, but
of an individual in some degree connected with them.

Nor with the faithfulness of a biographer, have we
portrayed the life of the personage whom we have
taken for our hero. We have woven for our purpose a
web of fact and fiction, unsolicitous to dye each thread
with its own peculiar hue, to enable the curious reader
thereby, the more readily to say which is which. But
if he chooses to draw out either thread, to inspect it
by itself, thinking thereby to judge better of the texture
of the whole, we have only to say—the web is his
own; and, that if his humour prompt him to break up
the watch, the pieces may perhaps reward his curiosity,
if they do not demonstrate his wisdom.

New-York, June, 1836.

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