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 PREFACE.

t would appear like affectation to offer an apology for any cenes or paages omitted or added, in this play, different from the original: its reception has given me confidence to uppose what I have done is right; for Kotzebue’s “Child of Love” in Germany, was never more attractive than “Lovers’ Vows” has been in England.

I could trouble my reader with many pages to diclose the motives which induced me to alter, with the exception of a few common-place entences only, the characters of Count Cael, Amelia, and Verdun the Butler—I could explain why the part of the Count, as in the original, would inevitably have condemned the whole Play,—I could inform my reader why I have pourtrayed the Baron in many particulars different from the German author, and carefully prepared the audience for the grand effect of the lat cene in the fourth act, by totally changing his conduct towards his on as a robber—why I gave entences of a humourous kind to the parts of the two Cottagers—why I was compelled, on many occaions, to compres the matter of a peech of three or four pages into one of three or four lines—and why, in