[Transcriber's note: The spelling inconsistencies of the original havebeen retained in this etext.]
The writer of this Tale ventures, in his own person, to addressa very few words, chiefly of explanation, to his readers. A leadingsituation in this 'Story of Bartram-Haugh' is repeated, with aslight variation, from a short magazine tale of some fifteen pageswritten by him, and published long ago in a periodical underthe title of 'A Passage in the Secret History of an Irish Countess,'and afterwards, still anonymously, in a small volume underan altered title. It is very unlikely that any of his readers shouldhave encountered, and still more so that they should remember,this trifle. The bare possibility, however, he has ventured toanticipate by this brief explanation, lest he should be chargedwith plagiarism—always a disrespect to a reader.
May he be permitted a few words also of remonstrance againstthe promiscuous application of the term 'sensation' to that largeschool of fiction which transgresses no one of those canons ofconstruction and morality which, in producing the unapproachable'Waverley Novels,' their great author imposed upon himself?No one, it is assumed, would describe Sir Walter Scott'sromances as 'sensation novels;' yet in that marvellous series thereis not a single tale in which death, crime, and, in some form,mystery, have not a place.
Passing by those grand romances of 'Ivanhoe,' 'Old Mortality,'and 'Kenilworth,' with their terrible intricacies of crime andbloodshed, constructed with so fine a mastery of the art ofexciting suspense and horror, let the reader pick out those twoexceptional novels in the series which profess to paint contemporarymanners and the scenes of common life; and remembering[pg xviii]in the 'Antiquary' the vision in the tapestried chamber,the duel, the horrible secret, and the death of old Elspeth, thedrowned fisherman, and above all the tremendous situation ofthe tide-bound party under the cliffs; and in 'St. Ronan's Well,'the long-drawn mystery, the suspicion of insanity, and thecatastrophe of suicide;—determine whether an epithet which itwould be a profanation to apply to the structure of any, eventhe most exciting of Sir Walter Scott's stories, is fairly applicableto tales which, though illimitably inferior in execution, yetobserve the same limitations of incident, and the same moralaims.
The author trusts that the Press, to whose masterly criticismand generous encouragement he and other humble labourersin the art owe so much, will insist upon the limitation of thatdegrading term to the peculiar type of fiction which it wasoriginally intended to indicate, and prevent, as they may, itsbeing made to include the legitimate school of tragic Englishromance, which has been ennobled, and in great measurefounded, by the genius of Sir Walter Scott.
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