Nor is this all;--the darker
page of Irish life shall be laid open before them--in which they will be
taught, by examples that they can easily understand, the fearful details
of misery, destitution, banishment, and death, which the commission of a
single crime may draw down, not only upon the criminal himself, but upon
those innocent and beloved connections whom he actually punishes by his
guilt.
It is, indeed, with fear and trembling that the Author undertakes such a
great and important task as this. If he fail, however, he may well say--
"_Quem si non tenuifc, tamon magnis excidit ausis_."
Still he is willing to hope that, through the aid of truthful fiction,
operating upon the feelings of his countrymen, and on their knowledge of
peasant life, he may furnish them with such a pleasing Encyclopedia of
social duty--now lit up with their mirth, and again made tender with
their sorrow--as will force them to look upon him as a benefactor--to
forget his former errors--and to cherish his name with affection, when
he himself shall be freed forever from those cares and trials of life
which have hitherto been his portion.
In the following simple narrative of "The Broken Pledge," it was his
aim, without leading his readers out of the plain paths of every-day
life or into the improbable creations of Romance, to detail the
character of such an individual as almost every man must have often seen
and noticed within the society by which he is surrounded.
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