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It is quite impossible for our readers to conceive
a tenth part of the yearnings we have endured
in the course of this work, in consequence
of not having been able, without committing
some unpardonable violence, to introduce to
their acquaintance and familiarity a single titled
person, for the purpose of giving dignity to distress,
and point to our jokes. The only man of
high rank, the honour of whose intimacy we enjoyed
in our travels abroad, was a certain Duke
Humphrey, with whom we occasionally dined.
But as, to say the truth, we can't declaim much in
favour of his dinners or his wine, we will not
trouble our readers with an introduction; for, to
be candid with them, his notice would confer no
great honour, the said Duke being generally

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surrounded by a set of hungry authors, who for the
most part did not know where else to get a dinner.

This incapacity we consider a most serious
misfortune, inasmuch as novel writers, we mean
those who aspire to the notice and approbation
of the beau monde, may be said to be in the predicament
of certain insignificant people, who derive
their sole consequence from the company
they affect to keep, and to which they take occasion
to introduce their friends. These aforesaid
persons, by affecting great intimacy with people
of rank, retailing their jokes, and sometimes pretending
to disclose their most secret thoughts,
acquire the reputation of high ton, and greatly
excite the wonder and admiration of the vulgar.
We recollect a good-natured, good-for-nothing
sort of fellow of this kind, who made it his sole
business to introduce a certain great man, with
whom he was a kind of hanger-on, to all his little
acquaintance. By this means he managed to
attain to great consequence, in a certain circle,
and got numerous invitations to dinner parties.
Nay, he at last turned his great man to so good
an account, that a city heiress actually was
induced to marry him, solely on the score of having
it announced in the papers, that his great

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friend was at the wedding and gave away the
bride.

We have endeavoured to make all the amends
possible for the absence of what constitutes the
quintessence of the interest arising from works
of imagination by the introduction of persons
coming as near to kings and nobility, as any that
are the natural product of our country. But,
after all, we are obliged to confess, that Indian
monarchs, provincial governors, nay, our good
friend William Penn himself, though the illustrious
founder of what may almost be called
an empire, are but poor substitutes for
dukes and earls, whose very titles tickle the
fancy so delightfully, that the reader seems all
the while swimming in an ocean of peacock's
feathers.

True it is, that we have a knight—not a knight
errant, but a genuine knight of James the First's
own dubbing, in reserve, as a sort of bonne bouche
for the last, in order to leave an agreeable impression
on the palate of the reader's imagination.
But, after all, what is a mere knight? they are so
plenty now-a-days in Old England, especially
ever since the battle of Waterloo, that the title
has not been able to entrap a single city heiress.
“Your thirty pound knights,” as an old

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dramatist calls them, who have barely enough to pay
for their spurs, swarm exceedingly, and are uncommonly
anxious to make every rich plebeian
Joan they meet, a lady. Nay, not a few of the
species have lately infested our country, and, by
their actual presence, irretrievably robbed the
fashionable young ladies of one of their favourite
subjects of contemplation, by giving a clear demonstration
that, whatever a king, a duke, or a
lord may be, a knight is but a mere man with a
“Sir” to his name. Such as he is, however, we
beg the reader to make the most of him, when
he vouchsafes his appearance.

To confess the honest truth, we are, as has
been most likely discovered ere this, rather
new in the trade of novel writing, having been
partly induced to enter upon it, as people engage
in the tobacco or grocery line, from seeing others
prosper mightily in the business. But we shall do
better hereafter, having felt the want of a hero and
heroine of proper rank most sorely in the course
of this work. We take this opportunity of advertising
our friends, and the public in general,
that we have at present six new historical novels
on the anvil, one of which, we have contracted
with our bookseller to hammer out every twelvemonth,
and each of which shall contain one

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legitimate, tyrannical king at least, provided there
should be a sufficient number remaining unhanged
at that time. We have also stipulated with
our publisher, that not one of the characters
shall be below a right honourable, or an Irish
peer, at least. Advising our readers to keep a
good look out for these high treats, we now proceed
with the thread of our history.

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