The Waverley Novels | Page 4

to have
written the Alexiad in a convent; and to have spent nearly thirty years
in this retirement, before her book was published.
For accurate particulars of the public events touched on in _Robert of
Paris,_ the reader is referred to the above quoted author, chapters xlviii.
xlix. and l.; and to the first volume of Mills' History of the Crusades.
J. G. L. London, 1st March, 1833.

INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS.
JEDEDIAH CLEISHBOTHAM, A.M.
TO THE LOVING READER WISHETH HEALTH AND
PROSPERITY.
It would ill become me, whose name has been spread abroad by those
former collections bearing this title of "Tales of my Landlord," and
who have, by the candid voice of a numerous crowd of readers, been
taught to think that I merit not the empty fame alone, but also the more
substantial rewards, of successful pencraft--it would, I say, ill become
me to suffer this my youngest literary babe, and, probably at the same

time, the last child of mine old age, to pass into the world without some
such modest apology for its defects, as it has been my custom to put
forth on preceding occasions of the like nature. The world has been
sufficiently instructed, of a truth, that I am not individually the person
to whom is to be ascribed the actual inventing or designing of the
scheme upon which these Tales, which men have found so pleasing,
were originally constructed, as also that neither am I the actual
workman, who, furnished by a skilful architect with an accurate plan,
including elevations and directions both general and particular, has
from thence toiled to bring forth and complete the intended shape and
proportion of each division of the edifice. Nevertheless, I have been
indisputably the man, who, in placing my name at the head of the
undertaking, have rendered myself mainly and principally responsible
for its general success. When a ship of war goeth forth to battle with
her crew, consisting of sundry foremast-men and various officers, such
subordinate persons are not said to gain or lose the vessel which they
have manned or attacked, (although each was natheless sufficiently
active in his own department;) but it is forthwith bruited and noised
abroad, without further phrase, that Captain Jedediah Cleishbotham
hath lost such a seventy-four, or won that which, by the united
exertions of all thereto pertaining, is taken from the enemy. In the same
manner, shame and sorrow it were, if I, the voluntary Captain and
founder of these adventures, after having upon three divers occasions
assumed to myself the emolument and reputation thereof, should now
withdraw myself from the risks of failure proper to this fourth and last
out-going. No! I will rather address my associates in this bottom with
the constant spirit of Matthew Prior's heroine:
"Did I but purpose to embark with thee On the smooth surface of some
summer sea, But would forsake the waves, and make the shore, When
the winds whistle, and the billows roar!"
As little, nevertheless, would it become my years and station not to
admit without cavil certain errors which may justly be pointed out in
these concluding "Tales of my Landlord,"--the last, and, it is manifest,
never carefully revised or corrected handiwork, of Mr. Peter Pattison,
now no more; the same worthy young man so repeatedly mentioned in

these Introductory Essays, and never without that tribute to his good
sense and talents, nay, even genius, which his contributions to this my
undertaking fairly entitled him to claim at the hands of his surviving
friend and patron. These pages, I have said, were the _ultimus labor_ of
mine ingenious assistant; but I say not, as the great Dr. Pitcairn of his
hero--ultimus atque optitmis. Alas! even the giddiness attendant on a
journey on this Manchester rail-road is not so perilous to the nerves, as
that too frequent exercise in the merry-go- round of the ideal world,
whereof the tendency to render the fancy confused, and the judgment
inert, hath in all ages been noted, not only by the erudite of the earth,
but even by many of the thick-witted Ofelli themselves; whether the
rapid pace at which the fancy moveth in such exercitations, where the
wish of the penman is to him like Prince Houssain's tapestry, in the
Eastern fable, be the chief source of peril--or whether, without
reference to this wearing speed of movement, and dwelling habitually
in those realms of imagination, be as little suited for a man's intellect,
as to breathe for any considerable space "the difficult air of the
mountain top" is to the physical structure of his outward frame--this
question belongeth not to me; but certain it is, that we often discover in
the works of the foremost of this order of men, marks of bewilderment
and confusion, such as do not