unoccupied the peculiar field in Historical Romance which the Author
has here sought to bring into cultivation. In "The Last of the
Barons," as in "Harold," the aim has been to illustrate the actual
history of the period, and to bring into fuller display than general
History itself has done the characters of the principal personages of
the time, the motives by which they were probably actuated, the state
of parties, the condition of the people, and the great social
interests which were involved in what, regarded imperfectly, appear
but the feuds of rival factions.

"The Last of the Barons" has been by many esteemed the best of the
Author's romances; and perhaps in the portraiture of actual character,
and the grouping of the various interests and agencies of the time, it
may have produced effects which render it more vigorous and lifelike
than any of the other attempts in romance by the same hand.

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