It will be observed that the purely imaginary characters introduced are very few; and, however prominent they may appear, still, in order not to interfere with the genuine passions and events of history, they are represented as the passive sufferers, not the active agents, of the real events. Of these imaginary characters, the most successful is Adam Warner, the philosopher in advance of his age; indeed, as an ideal portrait, I look upon it as the most original in conception, and the most finished in execution, of any to be found in my numerous prose works, "Zanoni" alone excepted.
For the rest, I venture to think that the general reader will obtain from these pages a better notion of the important age, characterized by the decline of the feudal system, and immediately preceding that great change in society which we usually date from the accession of Henry VII., than he could otherwise gather, without wading through a vast mass of neglected chronicles and antiquarian dissertations.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
BOOK I
THE ADVENTURES OF MASTER MARMADUKE NEVILE
CHAPTER
I The Pastime-ground of old Cockaigne
II The Broken Gittern
III The Trader and the Gentle; or, the Changing Generation
IV Ill fares the Country Mouse in the Traps of Town
V Weal to the Idler, Woe to the Workman
VI Master Marmaduke Nevile fears for the Spiritual Weal of his
Host and Hostess
VII There is a Rod for the Back of every Fool who would be Wiser
than his Generation