
Caxton or Wynken de Worde, prevents my attempting to confine myself within the
limits of the period in which my story is laid. It is necessary for exciting
interest of any kind that the subject assumed should be, as it were, translated
into the manners, as well as the language, of the age we live in. No fascination
has ever been attached to Oriental literature, equal to that produced by Mr.
Galland's first translation of the Arabian Tales; in which, retaining on the one
hand the splendour of Eastern costume, and on the other the wildness of Eastern
fiction, he mixed these with just so much ordinary, feeling and expression, as
rendered them interesting and intelligible, while he abridged the longwinded
narratives, curtailed the monotonous reflections, and rejected the endless
repetitions, of the Arabian original. The tales, therefore, though less purely
Oriental than in their first concoction, were eminently better fitted for the
European market, and obtained an unrivalled degree of public favour, which they
certainly would never have gained had not the manners and style been in some
degree familiarised to the feelings and habits of the Western reader.
    In point of justice, therefore, to the multitudes who will, I trust, devour
this book with avidity, I have so far explained our ancient manners in modern
language, and so far detailed the characters and sentiments of my persons, that
the modern reader will not find himself, I should hope, much trammelled by the
repulsive dryness of mere antiquity. In this, I respectfully contend, I have in
no respect exceeded the fair license due to the author of a fictitious
composition. The late ingenious Mr. Strutt, in his romance of Qeen-Hoo-Hall,6
acted upon another principle; and in distinguishing between what was ancient and
modern, forgot, as it appears to me, that extensive neutral ground, the large
proportion, that is, of manners and sentiments which are common to us and to our
ancestors, having been handed down unaltered from them to us, or which, arising
out of the principles of our common nature, must have existed alike in either
state of society. In this manner a man of talent, and of great antiquarian
erudition, limited the popularity of his work by excluding from it every thing
which was not sufficiently obsolete to be altogether forgotten and
unintelligible.
    The license which I would here vindicate, is so necessary to the execution
of my plan, that I will crave your patience while I illustrate my argument a
little farther.
    He who first opens Chaucer, or any other ancient poet, is so much struck
with
