You have gone for a while from the scenes you have immortalized, to regain, we trust, the health which has been impaired by your noble labors or by the manly struggles with adverse fortunes which have not found the frame as indomitable as the mind. Take with you the prayers of all whom your genius, with playful art, has soothed in sickness, or has strengthened, with generous precepts, against the calamities of life.
[Written at the time of Sir W. Scott’s visit to Italy, after the
great blow to his health and fortunes.]
“Navis quae, tibi creditum
Debes Virgilium...
Reddas incolumem!”
“O ship, thou owest to us Virgil! Restore in
safety him whom we intrusted to thee.”
You, I feel assured, will not deem it presumptuous in one who, to that bright and undying flame which now streams from the gray hills of Scotland,—the last halo with which you have crowned her literary glories,—has turned from his first childhood with a deep and unrelaxing devotion; you, I feel assured, will not deem it presumptuous in him to inscribe an idle work with your illustrious name,—a work which, however worthless in itself, assumes something of value in his eyes when thus rendered a tribute of respect to you.
THE AUTHOR OF “EUGENE ARAM.”
LONDON, December 22, 1831.
CONTENTS
[ PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1831. ]
[ PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1840. ]
[ PREFACE TO THE PRESENT EDITION. ]