of Genius which ever drive it to a war with popular prejudice, it
would be towards such contrivances that a man of great ingenuity and
intellect, if studying the physical sciences, would direct his
ambition.

Whether the author, in the invention he has assigned to his
philosopher (Adam Warner), has too boldly assumed the possibility of a
conception so much in advance of the time, they who have examined such
of the works of Roger Bacon as are yet given to the world can best
decide; but the assumption in itself belongs strictly to the most
acknowledged prerogatives of Fiction; and the true and important
question will obviously be, not whether Adam Warner could have
constructed his model, but whether, having so constructed it, the fate
that befell him was probable and natural.

Such characters as I have here alluded to seemed, then, to me, in
meditating the treatment of the high and brilliant subject which your
eloquence animated me to attempt, the proper Representatives of the
multiform Truths which the time of Warwick the King-maker affords to
our interests and suggests for our instruction; and I can only wish
that the powers of the author were worthier of the theme.

It is necessary that I now state briefly the foundation of the
Historical portions of this narrative. The charming and popular
"History of Hume," which, however, in its treatment of the reign of
Edward IV. is more than ordinarily incorrect, has probably left upon
the minds of many of my readers, who may not have directed their
attention to more recent and accurate researches into that obscure
period, an erroneous impression of the causes which led to the breach
between Edward IV. and his great kinsman and subject, the Earl of