  This Tale of “Harry Coverdale’s Courtship” has been a kind of enfant terrible—a thankless child—to its Author. It was originally begun as a short story, but the characters grew and expanded upon his hands, until they forced him to allow them wider proportions than he had originally intended. Then the Magazine in which the tale had been commenced changed owners, and the new proprietor, not being inclined to agree to the arrangements of his predecessor, saw fit to end the story himself, after a much more vivacious and dashing fashion than that of the present “lame and impotent conclusion.” These and other mishaps, quÆ nunc perscribere longam est, as dear Dr. Valpy’s Latin Grammar has it, have occasioned the story to be written—À plusieurs reprises, to use the “correct” phrase. The conclusion of the tale has been perpetrated at a time when, on account of severe nervous headaches, the Author was under strict medical orders not to write a line upon any consideration; and it is with the fear of the doctor before his eyes that he is penning these “few last words.” They are not written in the “forlorn hope” of disarming hostile criticism, but simply to assure those friends who have hitherto looked with an indulgent eye upon his writings, that if “Harry Coverdale’s Courtship” does not come up to any expectations they may have formed from the perusal of his previous works, it is rather the misfortune than the fault, of their grateful and obedient servant, THE AUTHOR.
HARRY COVERDALE’S COURTSHIP, AND ALL THAT CAME OF IT.
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