slept, and was refreshed, and cried,

"To-morrow to fresh woods and pastures new."

I had thought to have said something here respecting the concoction of
"St. Leon" and "Fleetwood." But all that occurs to me on the subject
seems to be anticipated in the following

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.

_February 14, 1805._

Yet another novel from the same pen, which has twice before claimed the
patience of the public in this form. The unequivocal indulgence which
has been extended to my two former attempts, renders me doubly
solicitous not to forfeit the kindness I have experienced.

One caution I have particularly sought to exercise: "not to repeat
myself." Caleb Williams was a story of very surprising and uncommon
events, but which were supposed to be entirely within the laws and
established course of nature, as she operates in the planet we inhabit.
The story of St. Leon is of the miraculous class; and its design, to
"mix human feelings and passions with incredible situations, and thus
render them impressive and interesting."

Some of those fastidious readers--they may be classed among the best
friends an author has, if their admonitions are judiciously
considered--who are willing to discover those faults which do not offer
themselves to every eye, have remarked that both these tales are in a
vicious style of writing; that Horace has long ago decided that the
story we cannot believe we are by all the laws of criticism called upon
to hate; and that even the adventures of the honest secretary, who was
first heard of ten years ago, are so much out of the usual road that not
one reader in a million can ever fear they will happen to himself.

Gentlemen critics, I thank you. In the present volumes I have served you
with a dish agreeable to your own receipt, though I cannot say with any
sanguine hope of obtaining your approbation.

The following story consists of such adventures as for the most part
have occurred to at least one half of the Englishmen now existing who
are of the same rank of life as my hero. Most of them have been at
college, and shared in college excesses; most of them have afterward run
a certain gauntlet of dissipation; most have married, and, I am afraid,
there are few of the married tribe who have not at some time or other
had certain small misunderstandings with their wives.[A] To be sure,
they have not all of them felt and acted under these trite adventures as
my hero does. In this lit