It is a fiction--as you may conceive; but yet, by a constant reference to the early records of human learning, I have studied to weave it up from truths.

If you would like to hear it,--it is very short--" "Above all things," said Vane; and the German drew a manuscript neatly bound from his pocket.
"After having myself criticised so insolently the faults of our national literature," said he, smiling, "you will have a right to criticise the faults that belong to so humble a disciple of it; but you will see that, though I have commenced with the allegorical or the supernatural, I have endeavoured to avoid the subtlety of conceit, and the obscurity of design, which I blame in the wilder of our authors.

As to the style, I wished to suit it to the subject; it ought to be, unless I err, rugged and massive,--hewn, as it were, out of the rock of primeval language.
But you, madam--doubtless you do not understand German ?" "Her mother was an Austrian," said Vane; "and she knows at least enough of the tongue to understand you; so pray begin." Without further preface, the German then commenced the story, which the reader will find translated* in the next chapter.
* Nevertheless I beg to state seriously, that the German student is an impostor; and that he has no right to wrest the parentage of the fiction from the true author..