rors: though without Cain's mark upon the brow, there is enough of Cain about their hearts; and, after all, such are the villains you are likely to see realized. Custom, the only true Procrustes, has cut or stretched every one to his iron bed. The murderer's brows throb under a water-proof hat, and his heart beats with guilty terror beneath a Valencia waistcoat and a broad-cloth coat; -the bridal veil hides the genuine and the artificial blush; good and bad, to the eye of the world, often look alike; and if outwardly similar, should surely be so in a Novel. We hope "Fitzherbert " may do some little good. If a few young hearts are taught by our heroine a lesson of endurance, humility, and trust in Providence, -if some lay by these pages with a renewed horror of affectation, mancuvring, and husband-hunting, we have not written in vain. We hope to amuse and benefit. We are not vain enough to expect to create a sensation, in these days, when (let the lovers of the olden times say what they will) genius is no longer the aloe-flower blossoming once a century, but an annual of rich luxuriant growth. We could name many works which, published a hundred years ago, would have reigned in the minds of men like "Clarissa Harlowe " or the " Vicar of Wakefield." The stars of the firmament are not the less bright because many shine at once; but it is to the solitary planet, alone in the heavens, that all "The Parson's Daugheyes are turned. ter," perhaps the most exquisite of recent fictions, would have enjoyed the long and undivided popularity of the "Vicar of Wakefield" had it appeared at the same time. As it was, it reigned the idol of the season; yielding its place ere long to other bright visions from the same rich imagination. Soon "The Two Old Men's Tales" won many listeners, the "Gipsy" many hearts; and ere long the town went mad after "Ernest Maltravers." If such divided and short-lived wor ship is the reward of the brightest efforts of acknowledged genius, what can the humble débutante expect? Still, anxious to pay a tribute to the silent eloquence of the voices which have long cheered her solitude, she ventures to prophesy that the works she has named, with several others she has not space to allude to, will, with the buoyancy of genius, rise again, to float down the stream of time, and reach the banks of immortality. And now she takes her leave, kindly greeting all expected and unexpected readers, and wishing "To each and all a long good night, And pleasant dreams, and slumbers light," |