med it the least
advisable:--but it would be almost discreditable if I had nothing that
resembled a performance possessing so much it were an honour to imitate.

In fact, the prodigal materials of the story--the rich and exuberant
complexities of Rienzi's character--joined to the advantage possessed by
the Novelist of embracing all that the Dramatist must reject (Thus the
slender space permitted to the Dramatist does not allow Miss Mitford to
be very faithful to facts; to distinguish between Rienzi's earlier and
his later period of power; or to detail the true, but somewhat intricate
causes of his rise, his splendour, and his fall.)--are sufficient to
prevent Dramatist and Novelist from interfering with each other.

London, December 1, 1835.

Preface to the Present Edition, 1848.

From the time of its first appearance, "Rienzi" has had the good fortune
to rank high amongst my most popular works--though its interest is
rather drawn from a faithful narration of historical facts, than from
the inventions of fancy. And the success of this experiment confirms me
in my belief, that the true mode of employing history in the service
of romance, is to study diligently the materials as history; conform to
such views of the facts as the Author would adopt, if he related them
in the dry character of historian; and obtain that warmer interest which
fiction bestows, by tracing the causes of the facts in the characters
and emotions of the personages of the time. The events of his work are
thus already shaped to his hand--the characters already created--what
remains for him, is the inner, not outer, history of man--the chronicle
of the human heart; and it is by this that he introduces a new harmony
between character and event, and adds the completer solution of what is
actual and true, by those speculations of what is natural and probable,
which are out of the province of history, but belong especially to the
philosophy of romance. And--if it be permitted the tale-teller to come
reverently for instruction in his art to the mightiest teacher of all,
who, whether in the page or on the scene, would give to airy fancies the
breath and the form of life,--such, we may observe, is the lesson the
humblest craftsman in historical romance may glean from the Historical
Plays of Shakespeare. Necessarily, Shakespeare consulted history
according to the imperfect lights, and from the popular authorities, of
his age; and I do not say, therefore,