FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   10   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27  
28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   >>   >|  
r, to repudiating his wife and disowning his children. Now for the application. Certain captious and incredulous people have doubted the veracity of the adventures I have recorded in these pages; I do not think it necessary to appeal to concurrent testimony and credible witnesses for their proof, but I pledge myself to the fact that every tittle I have related is as true as that my name is Lorrequer--need I say more? Another objection has been made to my narrative, and I cannot pass it by without a word of remark;--"these Confessions are wanting in scenes of touching and pathetic interest" (FOOTNOTE: We have the author's permission to state, that all the pathetic and moving incidents of his career he has reserved for a second series of "Confessions," to be entitled "Lorrequer Married?"--Publisher's Note.)--true, quite true; but I console myself on this head, for I remember hearing of an author whose paraphrase of the book of Job was refused by a publisher, if he could not throw a little more humour into it; and if I have not been more miserable and more unhappy, I am very sorry for it on your account, but you must excuse my regretting it on my own. Another story and I have done;--the Newgate Calendar makes mention of a notorious housebreaker, who closed his career of outrage and violence by the murder of a whole family, whose house he robbed; on the scaffold he entreated permission to speak a few words to the crowd beneath, and thus addressed them:--"My friends, it is quite true I murdered this family; in cold blood I did it--one by one they fell beneath my hand, while I rifled their coffers, and took forth their effects; but one thing is imputed to me, which I cannot die without denying--it is asserted that I stole an extinguisher; the contemptible character of this petty theft is a stain upon my reputation, that I cannot suffer to disgrace my memory." So would I now address you for all the graver offences of my book; I stand forth guilty--miserably, palpably guilty--they are mine every one of them; and I dare not, I cannot deny them; but if you think that the blunders in French and the hash of spelling so widely spread through these pages, are attributable to me; on the faith of a gentleman I pledge myself you are wrong, and that I had nothing to do with them. If my thanks for the kindness and indulgence with which these hastily written and rashly conceived sketches have been received by the press and the public,
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   10   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27  
28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Another

 

family

 

beneath

 

career

 
pathetic
 

author

 

guilty

 

permission

 

Confessions

 

pledge


Lorrequer
 

written

 
rifled
 
coffers
 

kindness

 

indulgence

 
effects
 

rashly

 
imputed
 
hastily

entreated

 

scaffold

 

public

 

robbed

 
sketches
 
denying
 

murdered

 

friends

 

addressed

 

received


conceived

 
spread
 

offences

 

graver

 

address

 
widely
 

French

 

miserably

 
spelling
 

palpably


character

 

contemptible

 

extinguisher

 
blunders
 

gentleman

 

attributable

 

memory

 

reputation

 

suffer

 

disgrace