he scene will be
laid in Egypt. This series of romances will not only have introduced the
reader to a knowledge of the history of manners and culture in Egypt, but
will have facilitated his comprehension of certain dominant ideas which
stirred the mind of the Ancients. How far I may have succeeded in
rendering the color of the times I have described and in producing
pictures that realize the truth, I myself cannot venture to judge; for
since even present facts are differently reflected in different minds,
this must be still more emphatically the case with things long since past
and half-forgotten. Again and again, when historical investigation has
refused to afford me the means of resuscitating some remotely ancient
scene, I have been obliged to take counsel of imagination and remember
the saying that 'the Poet must be a retrospective Seer,' and could allow
my fancy to spread her wings, while I remained her lord and knew the
limits up to which I might permit her to soar. I considered it my lawful
privilege to paint much that was pure invention, but nothing that was not
possible at the period I was representing. A due regard for such
possibility has always set the bounds to fancy's flight; wherever
existing authorities have allowed me to be exact and faithful I have
always been so, and the most distinguished of my fellow-professors in
Germany, England, France and Holland, have more than once borne witness
to this. But, as I need hardly point out, poetical and historical truth
are not the same thing; for historical truth must remain, as far as
possible, unbiassed by the subjective feeling of the writer, while
poetical truth can only find expression through the medium of the
artist's fancy.

As in my last two romances, so in "The Emperor," I have added no notes: I
do this in the pleasant conviction of having won the confidence of my
readers by my historical and other labors. Nothing has encouraged me to
fresh imaginative works so much as the fact that through these romances
the branch of learning that I profess has enlisted many disciples whose
names are now mentioned with respect among Egyptologists. Every one who
is familiar with the history of Hadrian's time will easily discern by
trifling traits from what author or from which inscription or monument
the minor details have been derived, and I do not care to interrupt the
course of the narrative and so spoil the pleasure of the larger class of
readers. It would be a happ