by WASHINGTON IRVING.
"I have no wife nor children, good or bad, to provide for. A mere
spectator of other men's fortunes and adventures, and how they
play their parts; which, methinks, are diversely presented unto
me, as from a common theatre or scene."--BURTON.
PREFACE TO THE REVISED EDITION.
THE following papers, with two exceptions, were written in
England, and formed but part of an intended series for which I
had made notes and memorandums. Before I could mature a plan,
however, circumstances compelled me to send them piecemeal to the
United States, where they were published from time to time in
portions or numbers. It was not my intention to publish them in
England, being conscious that much of their contents could be
interesting only to American readers, and, in truth, being
deterred by the severity with which American productions had been
treated by the British press.
By the time the contents of the first volume had appeared in this
occasional manner, they began to find their way across the
Atlantic, and to be inserted, with many kind encomiums, in the
London Literary Gazette. It was said, also, that a London
bookseller intended to publish them in a collective form.
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