Kate Gansevoort With Unic C Love HOME AS FOUND. W. A. TOWNSEND & COMPANY, 46 WALKER STREET. 1860. Entered according to the act of Congress, in the year 1938, by J. FENNIMORE COOPER, in the clerk's office of the dis'rict court of the United States, in and for the eastern district of Pennsylvania. 2 PREFACE. THOSE who have done us the favour to read 'HOMEward Bound' will at once perceive that the incidents of this book commence at the point where those of the work just mentioned ceased. We are fully aware of the disadvantage of dividing the interest of a tale in this manner; but in the present instance, the separation has been produced by circumstances over which the writer had very little control. As any one who may happen to take up this volume will very soon discover that there is other matter which it is necessary to know. may be as well to tell all such persons, in the com. mencement, therefore, that their reading will be bootless, unless they have leisure to turn to the pages of Homeward Bound for their cue. it We remember the despair with which that admirable observer of men, Mr. Mathews the comedian, con-fessed the hopelessness of success, in his endeavours to obtain a sufficiency of prominent and distinctive features to compose an entertainment founded on American character. The whole nation struck him as being destitute of salient points, and as characterized by a respectable mediocrity, that, however useful it might be in its way, was utterly without poetry, humour, or interest to the observer. For one who dealt principally with the more conspicuous absurditics of his fellowcreatures, Mr. Mathews was certainly right; we also iii |