There has been no exaggeration as to their extent, no great departure from their details; the means employed, even that which seems most far-fetched,--the instrument of the poisoned ring,--have their foundation in literal facts.

Nor have I much altered the social position of the criminals, nor in the least overrated their attainments and intelligence.

In those more salient essentials which will most, perhaps, provoke the Reader's incredulous wonder, I narrate a history, not invent a fiction [These criminals were not, however, in actual life, as in the novel, intimates and accomplices.

Their crimes were of similar character, effected by similar agencies, and committed at dates which embrace their several careers of guilt within the same period; but I have no authority to suppose that the one was known to the other.].

All that Romance which our own time affords is not more the romance than the philosophy of the time.