ADVERTIS ΤΟ THE SECONI THE sudden call for a Yemassee," so soon after the for the author to effect more th corrections which he had med first edition was a remarkabl hundred copies-twice the nu this country, of similar Euro fact, so highly encouraging to liarly so to him, as it imbodies opinion of his countrymen; v lingered in waiting for that cust judgment, which has been s weakness, against the charact New-York, April 23d, 1835. ADVERTISEMENT. I HAVE entitled this story a romance, and not a novel-the reader will permit me to insist upon the distinction. I am unwilling that "THE YEMASSEE" should be examined by any other than those standards which have governed me in its composition; and unless the critic is willing to adopt with me, those leading principles, in accordance with which the materials of my book have been selected, the less we have to say to one another the better. Supported by the authority of common sense and justice, not to speak of Pope "In every work regard the writer's end, Since none can compass more than they intend" I have surely a right to insist upon this particular. It is only when an author departs from his own standards, that he offends against propriety and deserves punishment. Reviewing " Atalantis," a fairy tale, full of machinery, and without a purpose save the imbodiment to the mind's eye of some of those "Gay creatures of the element, That in the colours of the rainbow live, And play i' the plighted clouds" a distinguished writer of this country gravely remarks, in a leading periodical,-"Magic is now beyond the credulity of eight years"-and yet, the author set out to make a story of the supernatural, and never contemplated, for a moment, the deception of any good citizen! The question briefly is, what are the standards of the modern romance-what is the modern romance itself? The reply is instant. Modern romance is the substitute which the people of to-day offer for the ancient epic. Its standards are the same. The reader, who, reading Ivanhoe, keeps Fielding and Richardson beside him, will be at fault in every step of his progress. The domestic novel of those writers, confined to the felicitous narration of common and daily occurring events, is altogether a different sort of composition; and if such a reader happens to pin his faith, in a strange simplicity and singleness of spirit, to such writers alone, the works of Maturin, of Scott, of Bulwer, and the rest, are only so much incoherent non sense. The modern romance is a poem in every sense of the word. It is only with those who insist upon poetry as rhyme, and rhyme as poetry, that the identity fails to be perceptible. Its standards are precisely those of the epic. It invests individuals with an absorbing interest-it hurries them through crowding events in a narrow space of time--it requires the same unities of plan, of purpose, and harmony of parts, and it seeks for its adventures among the wild and wonderful. It does not insist upon what is known, or even what is probable. It grasps at the possible; and, placing a human agent in hitherto untried situations, it exercises its ingenuity in extricating him from them, while describing his feelings and his fortunes in their |