ub or the Four-in-Hand, with a set of
subordinate characters from the elegantes of Queen Anne Street East, or
the dashing heroes of the Bow-Street Office? I could proceed in proving
the importance of a title-page, and displaying at the same time my own
intimate knowledge of the particular ingredients necessary to the
composition of romances and novels of various descriptions;--but it is
enough, and I scorn to tyrannise longer over the impatience of my reader,
who is doubtless already anxious to know the choice made by an author so
profoundly versed in the different branches of his art.

By fixing, then, the date of my story Sixty Years before this present 1st
November, 1805, I would have my readers understand, that they will meet
in the following pages neither a romance of chivalry nor a tale of modern
manners; that my hero will neither have iron on his shoulders, as of
yore, nor on the heels of his boots, as is the present fashion of Bond
Street; and that my damsels will neither be clothed 'in purple and in
pall,' like the Lady Alice of an old ballad, nor reduced to the primitive
nakedness of a modern fashionable at a rout. From this my choice of an
era the understanding critic may farther presage that the object of my
tale is more a description of men than manners. A tale of manners, to be
interesting, must either refer to antiquity so great as to have become
venerable, or it must bear a vivid reflection of those scenes which are
passing daily before our eyes, and are interesting from their novelty.
Thus the coat-of-mail of our ancestors, and the triple-furred pelisse of
our modern beaux, may, though for very different reasons, be equally fit
for the array of a fictitious character; but who, meaning the costume of
his hero to be impressive, would willingly attire him in the court dress
of George the Second's reign, with its no collar, large sleeves, and low
pocket-holes? The same may be urged, with equal truth, of the Gothic
hall, which, with its darkened and tinted windows, its elevated and
gloomy roof, and massive oaken table garnished with boar's-head and
rosemary, pheasants and peacocks, cranes and cygnets, has an excellent
effect in fictitious description. Much may also be gained by a lively
display of a modern fete, such as we have daily recorded in that part of
a newspaper entitled the Mirror of Fashion, if we contrast these, or
either of them, with the splendid formality of an entertainment given
Sixty Years Si