98

MARMION;

OR,

FLODDON FIELD.

Drama.

FOUNDED ON THE POEM

OF

WALTER SCOTT.

LONDON:

PUBLISHED BY J. MURRAY, 32, FLEET-STREET, AND
W. BLACKWOOD, EDINBURGH.

1812.

Madds. 109

Bt. from A.S.

~A.5. Craig

C. Baldwin, Printer,
New Bridge-street. Lonion.

1

PREFACE.

IT may be immaterial to the Public to be acquainted with the causes which led an unknown Author to compose a poetical work that perhaps will be neglected: yet, as every author hopes for a better fate, if the vanity that leads to publish the Poem is pardoned, the Preface may be received with equal indulgence.

After reading Mr. Scott's Marmion with attention and pleasure, I could not help considering whether an equal effect could have been produced with two alterations-the first, bringing the supposed guilt of Wilton nearer to the time of his unjust punishment-the other, softening a little the dreadful doom of Constance, that the Abbess of Whitby, (a good character, though tinged with professional prejudices) might no longer concur in a direct murder.

It was easy to find in English history a traitor with whom Wilton might be suspected to correspond, in the person of De-la-Pole, of the House of Suffolk, descended from the sister of Edward IV. and long the object of jealousy to