Introduction

INTRODUCTION--(1832.)

The Tales of the Crusaders was determined upon as the title of the
following series of the Novels, rather by the advice of the few
friends whom, death has now rendered still fewer, than by the
author's own taste. Not but that he saw plainly enough the
interest which might be excited by the very name of the Crusaders,
but he was conscious at the same time that that interest was of a
character which it might be more easy to create than to satisfy,
and that by the mention of so magnificent a subject each reader
might be induced to call up to his imagination a sketch so
extensive and so grand that it might not be in the power of the
author to fill it up, who would thus stand in the predicament of
the dwarf bringing with him a standard to measure his own stature,
and showing himself, therefore, says Sterne, "a dwarf more ways
than one."

It is a fact, if it were worth while to examine it, that the
publisher and author, however much their general interests are the
same, may be said to differ so far as title pages are concerned;
and it is a secret of the tale-telling art, if it could be termed
a secret worth knowing, that a taking-title, as it is called, best
answers the purpose of the bookseller, since it often goes far to
cover his risk, and sells an edition not unfrequently before the
public have well seen it. But the author ought to seek more
permanent fame, and wish that his work, when its leaves are first
cut open, should be at least fairly judged of. Thus many of the
best novelists have been anxious to give their works such titles
as render it out of the reader's power to conjecture their
contents, until they should have an opportunity of reading them.

All this did not prevent the Tales of the Crusaders from being the
title fixed on; and the celebrated year of projects (eighteen
hundred and twenty-five) being the time of publication, an
introduction was prefixed according to the humour of the day.

The first tale of the series was influenced in its structure,
rather by the wish to avoid the general expectations which might
be formed from the title, than to comply with any one of them, and
so disappoint the rest. The story was, therefore, less an incident
belonging to the Crusades, than one which was occasioned by the
singular cast of mind introduced and spread wide by those
memorable undertakings. The confusion among families was not the
least concomitant evil of the extraordinary preponderance of this
superstition. It was no unusual thing for a Crusader, returning
from his long toils of war and pilgrimage, to find his family
augmented by some young off-shoot, of whom the deserted matron
could give no very accurate account, or perhaps to find