MODERN LITERATURE:
A NOVEL,
IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. I.

COURTEOUS READER,

The production that I now submit toyou, proposes to represent the mannersof the times, in various situations, butespecially in literary departments. Theseare subjects with which I have been, andam, peculiarly conversant; and I trust theexhibition will be found fair and impartial,and also general, without any satiricalallusion to individual characters.

Many are prepossessed with a notion,that a writer, who, in a fictitious story,describes the times, means particular persons,and not classes of persons. Theonly work of the kind that I ever produced,was exposed to this prejudice. Inmy Highlander, there was scarcely a[iv]character of any note, that was not appliedto half a dozen of individuals,whom I never intended particularly toexhibit, and of most of whom I hadnever heard. I confess, however, it isdifficult to pourtray any character, eithergood or bad, without taking some of thelines from some good or bad person,whom you have actually known. Butit was my purpose so to assort and minglefeatures, as to prevent any approach toindividuality. Of the applications, thegreater number were made by the acquaintancesand friends of the supposedobjects; some, however, by the partiesthemselves. I have had several claimantsto characters, that are none of the best;and when the claims were advanced, Ireally did not know how or why the imputationarose. Should a person happento be a forward, busy, vain-glorious coxcomb,as thousands are, and I have no[v]knowledge of him, or his qualifications,I must be surprized, if in having drawnsuch a general and common character, Ishould be charged with intending toexpose that individual person. I may,afterwards, be able to account for thesupposition: but the food of vanity isnotoriety; and a frivolous egotist, byrepresenting himself as of sufficient consequenceto be satirized, will very readilyfancy he rises in importance, and will pretend,in every party, to complain of theattack, while his whole purpose is to makehimself the subject of talk. “Vanity,and vanity of vanities all is vanity.”

More than half a dozen were mentionedas the models of Doctor Vampus, theignorant, boasting, hawking and peddlingmaster of an academy. To no oneperson, I am convinced, the whole ofthat character could apply; but I amequally convinced, many parts of it...