I cannot conclude without rendering the tribute of my praise and homage to the versatile and gifted Author of the beautiful Tragedy of Rienzi.  Considering that our hero be the same—­considering that we had the same materials from which to choose our several stories—­I trust I shall be found to have little, if at all, trespassed upon ground previously occupied.  With the single exception of a love-intrigue between a relative of Rienzi and one of the antagonist party, which makes the plot of Miss Mitford’s Tragedy, and is little more than an episode in my Romance, having slight effect on the conduct and none on the fate of the hero, I am not aware of any resemblance between the two works; and even this coincidence I could easily have removed, had I deemed it the least advisable:—­but it would be almost discreditable if I had nothing that resembled a performance possessing so much it were an honour to imitate.

In fact, the prodigal materials of the story—­the rich and exuberant complexities of Rienzi’s character—­joined to the advantage possessed by the Novelist of embracing all that the Dramatist must reject (Thus the slender space permitted to the Dramatist does not allow Miss Mitford to be very faithful to facts; to distinguish between Rienzi’s earlier and his later period of power; or to detail the true, but somewhat intricate causes of his rise, his splendour, and his fall.)—­are sufficient to prevent Dramatist and Novelist from interfering with each other.

London, December 1, 1835.

Preface to the Present Edition, 1848.

From the time of its first appearance, “Rienzi” has had the good fortune to rank high amongst my most popular works—­though its interest is rather drawn from a faithful narration of historical facts, than from the inventions of fancy.  And the success of this experiment confirms me in my belief, that the true mode of employing history in the service of romance, is to study diligently the materials as history; conform to such views of the facts as the Author would adopt, if he related them in the dry character of historian; and obtain that warmer interest which fiction bestows, by tracing the causes of the facts in the characters and emotions of the personages of the time.  The events of his work are thus already shaped to his hand—­the characters already created—­what remains for him, is the inner, not outer, history of man—­the chronicle of the human heart; and it is by this that he introduces a new harmony between character and event, and adds the completer solution of what is actual and true, by those speculations of what is natural and probable, which are out of the province of history, but belong especially to the philosophy of romance.  And—­if it be permitted the tale-teller to come reverently for instruction in his art to the mightiest teacher of all, who, whether in the page or on the scene, would give to airy fancies the breath