sufficient to throw considerable light upon
the vie privée of our forefathers; indeed, I am convinced, that however I myself
may fail in the ensuing attempt, yet, with more labour in collecting, or more
skill in using, the materials within his reach, illustrated as they have been by
the labours of Dr. Henry, of the late Mr. Strutt, and, above all, of Mr. Sharon
Turner, an abler hand would have been successful; and therefore I protest
beforehand against any argument which may be founded on the failure of the
present experiment.
    On the other hand, I have already said that if anything like a true picture
of old English manners could be drawn, I would trust to the good nature and good
sense of my countrymen for insuring its favourable reception.
    Having thus replied, to the best of my power, to the first class of your
objections, or at least having shown my resolution to overleap the barriers
which your prudence has raised, I will be brief in noticing that which is more
peculiar to myself. It seemed to be your opinion that the very office of an
antiquary, employed in grave, and, as the vulgar will sometimes allege, in
toilsome and minute research, must be considered as incapacitating him from
successfully compounding a tale of this sort. But permit me to say, my dear
Doctor, that this objection is rather formal than substantial. It is true that
such slighter compositions might not suit the severer genius of our friend Mr.
Oldbuck. Yet Horace Walpole wrote a goblin tale which has thrilled through many
a bosom; and George Ellis could transfer all the playful fascination of a
humour, as delightful as it was uncommon, into his Abridgment of the Ancient
Metrical Romances. So that, however I may have occasion to rue my present
audacity, I have at least the most respectable precedents in my favour.
    Still the severer antiquary may think that, by thus intermingling fiction
with truth, I am polluting the well of history with modern inventions, and
impressing upon the rising generation false ideas of the age which I describe. I
cannot but in some sense admit the force of this reasoning, which I yet hope to
traverse by the following considerations.
    It is true that I neither can nor do pretend to the observation of complete
accuracy, even in matters of outward costume, much less in the more important
points of language and manners. But the same motive which prevents my writing,
the dialogue of the piece in Anglo-Saxon or in Norman-French, and which
prohibits my sending forth to the public this essay printed with the types of