Page:The Last Days of Pompeii - Bulwer-Lytton - Volume 1.djvu/19

 Authors have mostly given to them the stilted sentences—the cold and didactic solemnities of me avail myself of the words I refer to, and humbly and reverently appropriate them for the moment. "It is true, that I neither can, nor do pretend, to the observation [observance?] of complete accuracy even in matters of outward costume, much less in the more important points of language and manners. But the same motive which prevents my writing the dialogue of the piece in Anglo-Saxon, or in Norman-French, [in Latin or in Greek,] and which prohibits my sending forth this essay printed with the types of Caxton or Wynken de Worde [written with a reed upon five rolls of parchment-fastened to a cylinder, and adorned with a boss], prevents my attempting to confine myself within the limits of the period in which my story is laid. It is necessary for exciting interest of any kind, that the subject assumed should be, as it were, translated into the manners as well as the language of the age we live in."

"In point of justice therefore to the multitudes, who will, I trust, devour this book with avidity [hem!], I have so far explained ancient manners in modern language, and so far detailed the characters and sentiments of my persons, that the modern reader will not find himself, I should hope, much trammelled by the repulsive dryness of mere antiquity. In this, I respectfully contend, I have in no respect exceeded the fair licence due to the author of a fictitious composition."

"It is true," proceeds my authority, "that this licence is confined within legitimate bounds; the author must introduce nothing inconsistent with the manners of the age."—Preface to Ivanhoe.

I can add nothing to these judicious and discriminating remarks—they form the true canons of criticism, by which all Fiction that portrays the Past should be judged.