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OR,

LOVERS AND FORTUNE-HUNTERS.

BY

THE AUTHORESS OF

"THE BRIDE OF SIENA."

IN THREE VOLUMES.

VOL. I.

LONDON:

SAUNDERS AND OTLEY, CONDUIT STREET.

1838.

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PREFACE.

THE author of "Rienzi" has told us

that a preface should give the reader some idea of what he is to expect in the book. In many instances, perhaps, that would be more honest than politic, but we think we have done more; our very title-page lets the reader into the subject of our work,-" Lovers and FortuneHunters," that is to say, men and women of the present day; for surely all

belong to one of these classes, many to both. All then are concerned,―may all be equally interested!

We have now a few remarks to make on the conduct of the story. Some things, we know, will seem strange ;incredulous reader, beware ere you condemn those very things may perhaps be true,"Truth is strange, stranger far than fiction!" Do not forget the story of the man, who, professing to represent the cries of different animals, was hissed off the stage for his supposed imitation of the squeak of a pig; remember, that when he threw off his cloak, under his arm appeared the pig himself, the author of the squeak.

Our villains (for we have two villains of no common order) may appear too much like ordinary mortals in their dress, their manners, and their modes of life, to suit the taste of those accustomed to the rare mixtures of depravity and heroic virtue, of coward vice and frantic bravery, brought into fashion by Byron, and still the darlings of the lusus naturæ school. Such have a Cain-like mark upon the brow, slouched hat, impenetrable mantle, masses of shaggy hair, lead lives that never could be led by aught in human shape, and contrive to be in at least a dozen places at once. Such are not our more common-place villains; yet despair not, gentle lovers of vivid hor

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