First prefixed to the Edition of
1845
TO JOHN GIBSON, R.A., SCULPTOR.
In looking round the wide and luminous circle of our great
living Englishmen, to select one to whom I might fitly dedicate
this work,—one who, in his life as in his genius, might illustrate
the principle I have sought to convey; elevated by the ideal which
he exalts, and serenely dwelling in a glorious existence with the
images born of his imagination,—in looking round for some such man,
my thoughts rested upon you. Afar from our turbulent cabals; from
the ignoble jealousy and the sordid strife which degrade and
acerbate the ambition of Genius,—in your Roman Home, you have lived
amidst all that is loveliest and least perishable in the past, and
contributed with the noblest aims, and in the purest spirit, to the
mighty heirlooms of the future. Your youth has been devoted to
toil, that your manhood may be consecrated to fame: a fame
unsullied by one desire of gold. You have escaped the two worst
perils that beset the artist in our time and land,—the debasing
tendencies of commerce, and the angry rivalries of competition. You
have not wrought your marble for the market,—you have not been
tempted, by the praises which our vicious criticism has showered
upon exaggeration and distortion, to lower your taste to the level
of the hour; you have lived, and you have laboured, as if you had
no rivals but in the dead,—no purchasers, save in judges of what is
best. In the divine priesthood of the beautiful, you have sought
only to increase her worshippers and enrich her temples. The pupil
of Canova, you have inherited his excellences, while you have
shunned his errors,—yours his delicacy, not his affectation. Your
heart resembles him even more than your genius: you have the same
noble enthusiasm for your sublime profession; the same lofty
freedom from envy, and the spirit that depreciates; the same
generous desire not to war with but to serve artists in your art;
aiding, strengthening, advising, elevating the timidity of
inexperience, and the vague aspirations of youth. By the intuition
of a kindred mind, you have equalled the learning of Winckelman,
and the plastic poetry of Goethe, in the intimate comprehension of
the antique. Each work of yours, rightly studied, is in itself a
CRITICISM, illustrating the sublime secrets of the Grecian Art,
which, without the servility of plagiarism, you have contributed to
revive amongst us; in you we behold its three great and
long-undetected principles,—simplicity, calm, and
concentration.
But your admiration of the Greeks has not led you to the
bigotry of the mere antiquarian, nor made you less sensible of the
unappreciated excellence of the mighty modern, worthy to be your
countryman,—though till his statue is in the streets of our
capital, we show ourselves not worthy of the glory he has shed upon
our land. You have not suffered even your gratitude to Canova to
blind you to the superiority of Flaxman. When we become sensible of
our title-deeds to renown in that single name, we may look for an
English public capable of real patronage to English Art,—and not
till then.
I, artist in words, dedicate, then, to you, artist whose
ideas speak in marble, this well-loved work of my matured manhood.
I love it not the less because it has been little understood and
superficially judged by the common herd: it was not meant for them.
I love it not the more because it has found enthusiastic favorers
amongst the Few. My affection for my work is rooted in the solemn
and pure delight which it gave me to conceive and to perform. If I
had graven it on the rocks of a desert, this apparition of my own
innermost mind, in its least-clouded moments, would have been to me
as dear; and this ought, I believe, to be the sentiment with which
he whose Art is born of faith in the truth and beauty of the
principles he seeks to illustrate, should regard his work. Your
serener existence, uniform and holy, my lot denies,—if my heart
covets. But our true nature is in our thoughts, not our deeds: and
therefore, in books—which ARE his thoughts—the author's character
lies bare to the discerning eye. It is not in the life of
cities,—in the turmoil and the crowd; it is in the still, the
lonely, and more sacred life, which for some hours, under every
sun, the student lives (his stolen retreat from the Agora to the
Cave), that I feel there is between us the bond of that secret
sympathy, that magnetic chain, which unites the everlasting
brotherhood of whose being Zanoni is the type.
E.B.L.
One of the peculiarities of Bulwer was his passion for occult
studies. They had a charm for him early in life, and he pursued
them with the earnestness which characterised his pursuit of other
studies. He became absorbed in wizard lore; he equipped himself
with magical implements,—with rods for transmitting influence, and
crystal balls in which to discern coming scenes and persons; and
communed with spiritualists and mediums. The fruit of these mystic
studies is seen in "Zanoni" and "A strange Story," romances which
were a labour of love to the author, and into which he threw all
the power he possessed,—power re-enforced by multifarious reading
and an instinctive appreciation of Oriental thought. These weird
stories, in which the author has formulated his theory of magic,
are of a wholly different type from his previous fictions, and, in
place of the heroes and villains of every day life, we have beings
that belong in part to another sphere, and that deal with
mysterious and occult agencies. Once more the old forgotten lore of
the Cabala is unfolded; the furnace of the alchemist, whose fires
have been extinct for centuries, is lighted anew, and the lamp of
the Rosicrucian re-illumined. No other works of the author,
contradictory as have been the opinions of them, have provoked such
a diversity of criticism as these. To some persons they represent a
temporary aberration of genius rather than any serious thought or
definite purpose; while others regard them as surpassing in bold
and original speculation, profound analysis of character, and
thrilling interest, all of the author's other works. The truth, we
believe, lies midway between these extremes. It is questionable
whether the introduction into a novel of such subjects as are
discussed in these romances be not an offence against good sense
and good taste; but it is as unreasonable to deny the vigour and
originality of their author's conceptions, as to deny that the
execution is imperfect, and, at times, bungling and
absurd.
It has been justly said that the present half century has
witnessed the rise and triumphs of science, the extent and marvels
of which even Bacon's fancy never conceived, simultaneously with
superstitions grosser than any which Bacon's age believed. "The one
is, in fact, the natural reaction from the other. The more science
seeks to exclude the miraculous, and reduce all nature, animate and
inanimate, to an invariable law of sequences, the more does the
natural instinct of man rebel, and seek an outlet for those
obstinate questionings, those 'blank misgivings of a creature
moving about in worlds not realised,' taking refuge in delusions as
degrading as any of the so-called Dark Ages." It was the revolt
from the chilling materialism of the age which inspired the mystic
creations of "Zanoni" and "A Strange Story." Of these works, which
support and supplement each other, one is the contemplation of our
actual life through a spiritual medium, the other is designed to
show that, without some gleams of the supernatural, man is not man,
nor nature nature.
In "Zanoni" the author introduces us to two human beings who
have achieved immortality: one, Mejnour, void of all passion or
feeling, calm, benignant, bloodless, an intellect rather than a
man; the other, Zanoni, the pupil of Mejnour, the representative of
an ideal life in its utmost perfection, possessing eternal youth,
absolute power, and absolute knowledge, and withal the fullest
capacity to enjoy and to love, and, as a necessity of that love, to
sorrow and despair. By his love for Viola Zanoni is compelled to
descend from his exalted state, to lose his eternal calm, and to
share in the cares and anxieties of humanity; and this degradation
is completed by the birth of a child. Finally, he gives up the life
which hangs on that of another, in order to save that other, the
loving and beloved wife, who has delivered him from his solitude
and isolation. Wife and child are mortal, and to outlive them and
his love for them is impossible. But Mejnour, who is the
impersonation of thought,—pure intellect without affection,—lives
on.
Bulwer has himself justly characterised this work, in the
Introduction, as a romance and not a romance, as a truth for those
who can comprehend it, and an extravagance for those who cannot.
The most careless or matter-of-fact reader must see that the work,
like the enigmatical "Faust," deals in types and symbols; that the
writer intends to suggest to the mind something more subtle and
impalpable than that which is embodied to the senses. What that
something is, hardly two persons will agree. The most obvious
interpretation of the types is, that in Zanoni the author depicts
to us humanity, perfected, sublimed, which lives not for self, but
for others; in Mejnour, as we have before said, cold, passionless,
self-sufficing intellect; in Glyndon, the young Englishman, the
mingled strength and weakness of human nature; in the heartless,
selfish artist, Nicot, icy, soulless atheism, believing nothing,
hoping nothing, trusting and loving nothing; and in the beautiful,
artless Viola, an exquisite creation, pure womanhood, loving,
trusting and truthful. As a work of art the romance is one of great
power. It is original in its conception, and pervaded by one
central idea; but it would have been improved, we think, by a more
sparing use of the supernatural. The inevitable effect of so much
hackneyed diablerie—of such an accumulation of wonder upon
wonder—is to deaden the impression they would naturally make upon
us. In Hawthorne's tales we see with what ease a great imaginative
artist can produce a deeper thrill by a far slighter use of the
weird and the mysterious.
The chief interest of the story for the ordinary reader
centres, not in its ghostly characters and improbable machinery,
the scenes in Mejnour's chamber in the ruined castle among the
Apennines, the colossal and appalling apparitions on Vesuvius, the
hideous phantom with its burning eye that haunted Glyndon, but in
the loves of Viola and the mysterious Zanoni, the blissful and the
fearful scenes through which they pass, and their final destiny,
when the hero of the story sacrifices his own "charmed life" to
save hers, and the Immortal finds the only true immortality in
death. Among the striking passages in the work are the pathetic
sketch of the old violinist and composer, Pisani, with his
sympathetic "barbiton" which moaned, groaned, growled, and laughed
responsive to the feelings of its master; the description of
Viola's and her father's triumph, when "The Siren," his
masterpiece, is performed at the San Carlo in Naples; Glyndon's
adventure at the Carnival in Naples; the death of his sister; the
vivid pictures of the Reign of Terror in Paris, closing with the
downfall of Robespierre and his satellites; and perhaps, above all,
the thrilling scene where Zanoni leaves Viola asleep in prison when
his guards call him to execution, and she, unconscious of the
terrible sacrifice, but awaking and missing him, has a vision of
the procession to the guillotine, with Zanoni there, radiant in
youth and beauty, followed by the sudden vanishing of the
headsman,—the horror,—and the "Welcome" of her loved one to Heaven
in a myriad of melodies from the choral hosts above.
"Zanoni" was originally published by Saunders and Otley,
London, in three volumes 12mo., in 1842. A translation into French,
made by M. Sheldon under the direction of P. Lorain, was published
in Paris in the "Bibliotheque des Meilleurs Romans
Etrangers."
W.M.
It is possible that among my readers there may be a few not
unacquainted with an old-book shop, existing some years since in
the neighbourhood of Covent Garden; I say a few, for certainly
there was little enough to attract the many in those precious
volumes which the labour of a life had accumulated on the dusty
shelves of my old friend D—. There were to be found no popular
treatises, no entertaining romances, no histories, no travels, no
"Library for the People," no "Amusement for the Million." But
there, perhaps, throughout all Europe, the curious might discover
the most notable collection, ever amassed by an enthusiast, of the
works of alchemist, cabalist, and astrologer. The owner had
lavished a fortune in the purchase of unsalable treasures. But old
D— did not desire to sell. It absolutely went to his heart when a
customer entered his shop: he watched the movements of the
presumptuous intruder with a vindictive glare; he fluttered around
him with uneasy vigilance,—he frowned, he groaned, when profane
hands dislodged his idols from their niches. If it were one of the
favourite sultanas of his wizard harem that attracted you, and the
price named were not sufficiently enormous, he would not
unfrequently double the sum. Demur, and in brisk delight he
snatched the venerable charmer from your hands; accede, and he
became the picture of despair,—nor unfrequently, at the dead of
night, would he knock at your door, and entreat you to sell him
back, at your own terms, what you had so egregiously bought at his.
A believer himself in his Averroes and Paracelsus, he was as loth
as the philosophers he studied to communicate to the profane the
learning he had collected.
It so chanced that some years ago, in my younger days,
whether of authorship or life, I felt a desire to make myself
acquainted with the true origin and tenets of the singular sect
known by the name of Rosicrucians. Dissatisfied with the scanty and
superficial accounts to be found in the works usually referred to
on the subject, it struck me as possible that Mr. D—'s collection,
which was rich, not only in black-letter, but in manuscripts, might
contain some more accurate and authentic records of that famous
brotherhood,—written, who knows? by one of their own order, and
confirming by authority and detail the pretensions to wisdom and to
virtue which Bringaret had arrogated to the successors of the
Chaldean and Gymnosophist. Accordingly I repaired to what,
doubtless, I ought to be ashamed to confess, was once one of my
favourite haunts. But are there no errors and no fallacies, in the
chronicles of our own day, as absurd as those of the alchemists of
old? Our very newspapers may seem to our posterity as full of
delusions as the books of the alchemists do to us; not but what the
press is the air we breathe,—and uncommonly foggy the air is
too!
On entering the shop, I was struck by the venerable
appearance of a customer whom I had never seen there before. I was
struck yet more by the respect with which he was treated by the
disdainful collector. "Sir," cried the last, emphatically, as I was
turning over the leaves of the catalogue,—"sir, you are the only
man I have met, in five-and-forty years that I have spent in these
researches, who is worthy to be my customer. How—where, in this
frivolous age, could you have acquired a knowledge so profound? And
this august fraternity, whose doctrines, hinted at by the earliest
philosophers, are still a mystery to the latest; tell me if there
really exists upon the earth any book, any manuscript, in which
their discoveries, their tenets, are to be learned?"
At the words, "august fraternity," I need scarcely say that
my attention had been at once aroused, and I listened eagerly for
the stranger's reply.
"I do not think," said the old gentleman, "that the masters
of the school have ever consigned, except by obscure hint and
mystical parable, their real doctrines to the world. And I do not
blame them for their discretion."
Here he paused, and seemed about to retire, when I said,
somewhat abruptly, to the collector, "I see nothing, Mr. D—, in
this catalogue which relates to the Rosicrucians!"
"The Rosicrucians!" repeated the old gentleman, and in his
turn he surveyed me with deliberate surprise. "Who but a
Rosicrucian could explain the Rosicrucian mysteries! And can you
imagine that any members of that sect, the most jealous of all
secret societies, would themselves lift the veil that hides the
Isis of their wisdom from the world?"
"Aha!" thought I, "this, then, is 'the august fraternity' of
which you spoke. Heaven be praised! I certainly have stumbled on
one of the brotherhood."
"But," I said aloud, "if not in books, sir, where else am I
to obtain information? Nowadays one can hazard nothing in print
without authority, and one may scarcely quote Shakespeare without
citing chapter and verse. This is the age of facts,—the age of
facts, sir."
"Well," said the old gentleman, with a pleasant smile, "if we
meet again, perhaps, at least, I may direct your researches to the
proper source of intelligence." And with that he buttoned his
greatcoat, whistled to his dog, and departed.
It so happened that I did meet again with the old gentleman,
exactly four days after our brief conversation in Mr. D—'s
bookshop. I was riding leisurely towards Highgate, when, at the
foot of its classic hill, I recognised the stranger; he was mounted
on a black pony, and before him trotted his dog, which was black
also.
If you meet the man whom you wish to know, on horseback, at
the commencement of a long hill, where, unless he has borrowed a
friend's favourite hack, he cannot, in decent humanity to the brute
creation, ride away from you, I apprehend that it is your own fault
if you have not gone far in your object before you have gained the
top. In short, so well did I succeed, that on reaching Highgate the
old gentleman invited me to rest at his house, which was a little
apart from the village; and an excellent house it was,—small, but
commodious, with a large garden, and commanding from the windows
such a prospect as Lucretius would recommend to philosophers: the
spires and domes of London, on a clear day, distinctly visible;
here the Retreat of the Hermit, and there the Mare Magnum of the
world.
The walls of the principal rooms were embellished with
pictures of extraordinary merit, and in that high school of art
which is so little understood out of Italy. I was surprised to
learn that they were all from the hand of the owner. My evident
admiration pleased my new friend, and led to talk upon his part,
which showed him no less elevated in his theories of art than an
adept in the practice. Without fatiguing the reader with irrelevant
criticism, it is necessary, perhaps, as elucidating much of the
design and character of the work which these prefatory pages
introduce, that I should briefly observe, that he insisted as much
upon the connection of the arts, as a distinguished author has upon
that of the sciences; that he held that in all works of
imagination, whether expressed by words or by colours, the artist
of the higher schools must make the broadest distinction between
the real and the true,—in other words, between the imitation of
actual life, and the exaltation of Nature into the
Ideal.
"The one," said he, "is the Dutch School, the other is the
Greek."
"Sir," said I, "the Dutch is the most in
fashion."
"Yes, in painting, perhaps," answered my host, "but in
literature—"
"It was of literature I spoke. Our growing poets are all for
simplicity and Betty Foy; and our critics hold it the highest
praise of a work of imagination, to say that its characters are
exact to common life, even in sculpture—"
"In sculpture! No, no! THERE the high ideal must at least be
essential!"
"Pardon me; I fear you have not seen Souter Johnny and Tam
O'Shanter."
"Ah!" said the old gentleman, shaking his head, "I live very
much out of the world, I see. I suppose Shakespeare has ceased to
be admired?"
"On the contrary; people make the adoration of Shakespeare
the excuse for attacking everybody else. But then our critics have
discovered that Shakespeare is so REAL!"
"Real! The poet who has never once drawn a character to be
met with in actual life,—who has never once descended to a passion
that is false, or a personage who is real!"
I was about to reply very severely to this paradox, when I
perceived that my companion was growing a little out of temper. And
he who wishes to catch a Rosicrucian, must take care not to disturb
the waters. I thought it better, therefore, to turn the
conversation.
"Revenons a nos moutons," said I; "you promised to enlighten
my ignorance as to the Rosicrucians."
"Well!" quoth he, rather sternly; "but for what purpose?
Perhaps you desire only to enter the temple in order to ridicule
the rites?"
"What do you take me for! Surely, were I so inclined, the
fate of the Abbe de Villars is a sufficient warning to all men not
to treat idly of the realms of the Salamander and the Sylph.
Everybody knows how mysteriously that ingenious personage was
deprived of his life, in revenge for the witty mockeries of his
'Comte de Gabalis.'"
"Salamander and Sylph! I see that you fall into the vulgar
error, and translate literally the allegorical language of the
mystics."
With that the old gentleman condescended to enter into a very
interesting, and, as it seemed to me, a very erudite relation, of
the tenets of the Rosicrucians, some of whom, he asserted, still
existed, and still prosecuted, in august secrecy, their profound
researches into natural science and occult philosophy.
"But this fraternity," said he, "however respectable and
virtuous,—virtuous I say, for no monastic order is more severe in
the practice of moral precepts, or more ardent in Christian
faith,—this fraternity is but a branch of others yet more
transcendent in the powers they have obtained, and yet more
illustrious in their origin. Are you acquainted with the
Platonists?"
"I have occasionally lost my way in their labyrinth," said I.
"Faith, they are rather difficult gentlemen to
understand."
"Yet their knottiest problems have never yet been published.
Their sublimest works are in manuscript, and constitute the
initiatory learning, not only of the Rosicrucians, but of the
nobler brotherhoods I have referred to. More solemn and sublime
still is the knowledge to be gleaned from the elder Pythagoreans,
and the immortal masterpieces of Apollonius."
"Apollonius, the imposter of Tyanea! are his writings
extant?"
"Imposter!" cried my host; "Apollonius an
imposter!"
"I beg your pardon; I did not know he was a friend of yours;
and if you vouch for his character, I will believe him to have been
a very respectable man, who only spoke the truth when he boasted of
his power to be in two places at the same time."
"Is that so difficult?" said the old gentleman; "if so, you
have never dreamed!"
Here ended our conversation; but from that time an
acquaintance was formed between us which lasted till my venerable
friend departed this life. Peace to his ashes! He was a person of
singular habits and eccentric opinions; but the chief part of his
time was occupied in acts of quiet and unostentatious goodness. He
was an enthusiast in the duties of the Samaritan; and as his
virtues were softened by the gentlest charity, so his hopes were
based upon the devoutest belief. He never conversed upon his own
origin and history, nor have I ever been able to penetrate the
darkness in which they were concealed. He seemed to have seen much
of the world, and to have been an eye-witness of the first French
Revolution, a subject upon which he was equally eloquent and
instructive. At the same time he did not regard the crimes of that
stormy period with the philosophical leniency with which
enlightened writers (their heads safe upon their shoulders) are, in
the present day, inclined to treat the massacres of the past: he
spoke not as a student who had read and reasoned, but as a man who
had seen and suffered. The old gentleman seemed alone in the world;
nor did I know that he had one relation, till his executor, a
distant cousin, residing abroad, informed me of the very handsome
legacy which my poor friend had bequeathed me. This consisted,
first, of a sum about which I think it best to be guarded,
foreseeing the possibility of a new tax upon real and funded
property; and, secondly, of certain precious manuscripts, to which
the following volumes owe their existence.
I imagine I trace this latter bequest to a visit I paid the
Sage, if so I may be permitted to call him, a few weeks before his
death.
Although he read little of our modern literature, my friend,
with the affable good-nature which belonged to him, graciously
permitted me to consult him upon various literary undertakings
meditated by the desultory ambition of a young and inexperienced
student. And at that time I sought his advice upon a work of
imagination, intended to depict the effects of enthusiasm upon
different modifications of character. He listened to my conception,
which was sufficiently trite and prosaic, with his usual patience;
and then, thoughtfully turning to his bookshelves, took down an old
volume, and read to me, first, in Greek, and secondly, in English,
some extracts to the following effect:—
"Plato here expresses four kinds of mania, by which I desire
to understand enthusiasm and the inspiration of the gods: Firstly,
the musical; secondly, the telestic or mystic; thirdly, the
prophetic; and fourthly, that which belongs to love."
The author he quoted, after contending that there is
something in the soul above intellect, and stating that there are
in our nature distinct energies,—by the one of which we discover
and seize, as it were, on sciences and theorems with almost
intuitive rapidity, by another, through which high art is
accomplished, like the statues of Phidias,—proceeded to state that
"enthusiasm, in the true acceptation of the word, is, when that
part of the soul which is above intellect is excited to the gods,
and thence derives its inspiration."
The author, then pursuing his comment upon Plato, observes,
that "one of these manias may suffice (especially that which
belongs to love) to lead back the soul to its first divinity and
happiness; but that there is an intimate union with them all; and
that the ordinary progress through which the soul ascends is,
primarily, through the musical; next, through the telestic or
mystic; thirdly, through the prophetic; and lastly, through the
enthusiasm of love."
While with a bewildered understanding and a reluctant
attention I listened to these intricate sublimities, my adviser
closed the volume, and said with complacency, "There is the motto
for your book,—the thesis for your theme."
"Davus sum, non Oedipus," said I, shaking my head,
discontentedly. "All this may be exceedingly fine, but, Heaven
forgive me,—I don't understand a word of it. The mysteries of your
Rosicrucians, and your fraternities, are mere child's play to the
jargon of the Platonists."
"Yet, not till you rightly understand this passage, can you
understand the higher theories of the Rosicrucians, or of the still
nobler fraternities you speak of with so much levity."
"Oh, if that be the case, I give up in despair. Why not,
since you are so well versed in the matter, take the motto for a
book of your own?"
"But if I have already composed a book with that thesis for
its theme, will you prepare it for the public?"
"With the greatest pleasure," said I,—alas, too
rashly!
"I shall hold you to your promise," returned the old
gentleman, "and when I am no more, you will receive the
manuscripts. From what you say of the prevailing taste in
literature, I cannot flatter you with the hope that you will gain
much by the undertaking. And I tell you beforehand that you will
find it not a little laborious."
"Is your work a romance?"
"It is a romance, and it is not a romance. It is a truth for
those who can comprehend it, and an extravagance for those who
cannot."
At last there arrived the manuscripts, with a brief note from
my deceased friend, reminding me of my imprudent
promise.
With mournful interest, and yet with eager impatience, I
opened the packet and trimmed my lamp. Conceive my dismay when I
found the whole written in an unintelligible cipher. I present the
reader with a specimen:
(Several strange characters.)
and so on for nine hundred and forty mortal pages in
foolscap. I could scarcely believe my eyes: in fact, I began to
think the lamp burned singularly blue; and sundry misgivings as to
the unhallowed nature of the characters I had so unwittingly opened
upon, coupled with the strange hints and mystical language of the
old gentleman, crept through my disordered imagination. Certainly,
to say no worse of it, the whole thing looked UNCANNY! I was about,
precipitately, to hurry the papers into my desk, with a pious
determination to have nothing more to do with them, when my eye
fell upon a book, neatly bound in blue morocco, and which, in my
eagerness, I had hitherto overlooked. I opened this volume with
great precaution, not knowing what might jump out, and—guess my
delight—found that it contained a key or dictionary to the
hieroglyphics. Not to weary the reader with an account of my
labours, I am contented with saying that at last I imagined myself
capable of construing the characters, and set to work in good
earnest. Still it was no easy task, and two years elapsed before I
had made much progress. I then, by way of experiment on the public,
obtained the insertion of a few desultory chapters, in a periodical
with which, for a few months, I had the honour to be connected.
They appeared to excite more curiosity than I had presumed to
anticipate; and I renewed, with better heart, my laborious
undertaking. But now a new misfortune befell me: I found, as I
proceeded, that the author had made two copies of his work, one
much more elaborate and detailed than the other; I had stumbled
upon the earlier copy, and had my whole task to remodel, and the
chapters I had written to retranslate. I may say then, that,
exclusive of intervals devoted to more pressing occupations, my
unlucky promise cost me the toil of several years before I could
bring it to adequate fulfilment. The task was the more difficult,
since the style in the original is written in a kind of rhythmical
prose, as if the author desired that in some degree his work should
be regarded as one of poetical conception and design. To this it
was not possible to do justice, and in the attempt I have doubtless
very often need of the reader's indulgent consideration. My natural
respect for the old gentleman's vagaries, with a muse of equivocal
character, must be my only excuse whenever the language, without
luxuriating into verse, borrows flowers scarcely natural to prose.
Truth compels me also to confess, that, with all my pains, I am by
no means sure that I have invariably given the true meaning of the
cipher; nay, that here and there either a gap in the narrative, or
the sudden assumption of a new cipher, to which no key was
afforded, has obliged me to resort to interpolations of my own, no
doubt easily discernible, but which, I flatter myself, are not
inharmonious to the general design. This confession leads me to the
sentence with which I shall conclude: If, reader, in this book
there be anything that pleases you, it is certainly mine; but
whenever you come to something you dislike,—lay the blame upon the
old gentleman!
N.B.—The notes appended to the text are sometimes by the
author, sometimes by the editor. I have occasionally (but not
always) marked the distinction; where, however, this is omitted,
the ingenuity of the reader will be rarely at fault.