Publisher's Synopsis
From the PREFACE.
PERHAPS there is no other country, whose history is so little adapted to poetical illustration as that of the United States of America. The art of printing has been in general use since the earliest settlement, and the policy of both the Provinces and the States has been to encourage the dissemination of accurate knowledge. There is consequently neither a dark, nor even an obscure, period in the American annals: all is not only known, but so well and generally known, that nothing is left for the imagination to embellish. It is true that the world has fallen into its usual errors on the subject of individual character; taking those parts which are the most conspicuous and the best understood, as guides in establishing a harmony that it almost always insists on; while he who thoroughly understands human nature is not to learn that the most opposite qualities are frequently the inhabitants of the same breast. But it is the part of the poet to humour these mistakes; for there is no blunder more sure to be visited by punishment, than that which tempts a writer to instruct his readers when they wish only to be amused. The author has had these truths forced upon him by experience, and in no instance more obviously than in the difficulties he encountered in writing this his only historical tale, and in its reception by the world. That he has not disregarded the opinion of the latter, is proved by his having discontinued attempts of whose uselessness he has been so clearly, though so delicately, admonished.
When a writer of fiction is permitted to violate the order of time, and to select customs and events from different ages, as his legitimate means, he has no right to throw the blame of his failure on any thing but his own incompetency; but when circumstances are opposed to his success, he may be permitted to say, in his own justification, more especially when he admits his error by recantation, that his principal mistake was in attempting to do that which was not to be done well at all.
Notwithstanding the unequivocal admission, that Lionel Lincoln is not what its author hoped it would have been, when he commenced his task, he still thinks it is not without some claim to the reader's attention. The battles of Lexington and Bunker's Hill, and the movement on Prospect Hill, are believed to be as faithfully described as is possible to have been done by one who was not an eye-witness of those important events. No pains were spared in examining all the documents, both English and American; and many private authorities were consulted, with a strong desire to ascertain the truth. The ground was visited and examined, and the differing testimony was subjected to a close comparison between the statements and the probability. Even a journal of the state of the weather was procured, and its entries were rigidly respected; so that he who feels sufficient interest in these details may rest assured that he will obtain facts on all these particulars, by reading this book. It may serve as an admonition to reviewers to mention, that Lionel Lincoln, on its appearance, was attacked for a supposed indifference, on the part of its author, to the laws of nature, because he introduced a moon so often! The critic, in his zeal to reprove, overlooked the material fact, that the time advanced from month to month, and he is now informed that the above-mentioned diary of the weather lay before the writer the whole time he was engaged on the work!
Writers of imaginative books are not always understood, even by those who assume the ability as well as the right to dissect the workings of their minds. A liberal, and certainly a favourable, criticism of this book, considering its demerits, contained a remark, that the conception and delineation of the characters of the idiot and the madman must have given great trouble to its author....
