Page:The power of sympathy- or, The triumph of nature. Founded in truth (IA cu31924021986306).pdf/19



N errant perusal of half the pages of this little volume once caused me to determine to eschew literary criticism in the preface I was asked to write, and to speak of the book solely according to its historical and hence its intrinsic value.

Continue reading here and there, and, at length, a careful examination of the work as a whole have convinced me that several merits may be attributed to the book which range themselves separately in my mind and which are distinct and wholly unique characteristics. They seem to me to be as follows: the bare antiquarian value–as a relic, rare, and old; the historical-literary value, as an expression of the times in which it was written; and its purely artistic worth, as a specimen of English novel writing.