ABSTRACT
The great good fortune which attended the publication in the favor of the public, the repeated editions which have been called for, and the favourable opinions of most of the critics, who, from time to time, have sat in judgement upon it, seem to justify the author in endeavouring to retouch and perpetuate the old inscription in the new and improved edition of the author's various writings which it is meant to herald. The modern Romance is the substitute which the people of the present day offer for the ancient epic. The form is changed; the matter is very much the same; at all events, it differs much more seriously from the English novel than it does from the epic and the drama, because the difference is one of material, even of fabrication. The reader who, reading Ivan-hoe, keeps Richardson and Fielding beside him, will be at fault in every step of his progress.
