A TALE

OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

IN

ENGLAND.

BY WILLIAM GODWIN.

And the waters of that fountain were bitter: and they said, Let the

name of it be called Marah.

EXODUS, Cap. xv.

IN THREE VOLUMES.

VOL. I.

EDINBURGH:

PRINTED FOR ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE AND CO.

AND LONGMAN, HURST, rees, ormE, AND BROWN,

LONDON.

TO THE

MEMORY

OF THE

SINCEREST FRIEND I EVER HAD,

THE LATE

JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN,

(WHO A FEW DAYS SINCE QUITTED THIS MORTAL STAGE)

I AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBE

THESE VOLUMES.

October 25,

1817.

PREFACE.

APPROACHING, as I now very rapidly do, to the period when I must bid the world an everlasting farewel, I am not unwilling to make up my accounts with it, as far as relates to this lighter species of composition. On this occasion, I am contented to talk, to that small portion of the world whose eye is ever likely to light upon these prefatory pages, with the communicativeness of an intimate friend.

Eight years ago I began a novel. The thought I adopted as the germ of my work, was taken from the story of the Seven Sleepers in the records of the first centuries of Christianity, or rather