A FRAGMENT OF CONTEMPORARY BIOGRAPHY
BY LAURENCE OLIPHANT
WITH EIGHT ILLUSTRATIONS BY RICHARD DOYLE
ELEVENTH EDITION
WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS
EDINBURGH AND LONDON
MDCCCXCII
This Work originally appeared in 'Blackwood's Magazine,' and has been since revised and altered by the Author.
"Some make love in poetry,
And some in—Piccadilly."
—Praed.
"Faithful.—'I say, then, in answer to what Mr Envy hath spoken, I never said aught but this, That what rule, or laws, or customs, or people, were flat against the Word of God, are diametrically opposed to Christianity. If I have said amiss in this, convince me of my error, and I am ready here, before you all, to make my recantation.'"—Bunyan's 'Pilgrim's Progress.'
PREFACE.
Five years have elapsed since the following pages were penned, and periodically issued, under an impulse which seemed at the time irresistible. I found myself unable, by any conscious act of volition, to control either the plot or the style. Nor from my present point of view do I particularly admire either the one or the other. At the same time, I have reason to hope that the republication of this sketch now, with all its defects, is calculated to do more good than harm to the society it attempts to delineate.
This conviction must be my apology for again forcing upon the public a fragment so hostile to it in tone and spirit. I would reiterate the observation made elsewhere in the work, that none of the characters are intended to represent any members of society who were then, or are now, alive.