66 'THE MYTHOLOGY OF ANCIENT GREECE AND ITALY;"
POPULAR FICTIONS;" ETC.

"TALES AND

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. I.

PUBLISHED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF

THE COMMITTEE OF GENERAL LITERATURE AND EDUCATION,
APPOINTED BY THE SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING
CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE.

THE THIRD EDITION.

LONDON:

JOHN W. PARKER, WEST STRAND.

M.DCCC.XL.

4ZE BF

PREFACE.

THE present work, as is sufficiently indicated by its title, is not designed to be a regular history of the Crusades. It is a picture of manners rather than a narrative of events. The object proposed has been to set before the view of the reader, as clearly as the existing documents permit, the Crusaders, the Greeks, the Turks, and the Saracens, of the twelfth century, as they lived, thought, and acted. Hence there will be found much more of anecdote in the following pages than is perhaps consistent with legitimate historic narrative. Discussion has been avoided as being unsuitable to a work of this kind, and reflections are introduced only where they seem to be required, and presented themselves naturally. The narration, though not laying claim to the rank of history, is, however, consecutive; for, perhaps, very few readers are sufficiently familiar with the history of the Crusades to be able to understand and relish its scenes, events, and characters, when presented in an un

connected form, and the interest is always best sustained by a regular succession of events.

Views of the scenes of the principal events are given, to aid the reader in forming an accurate conception of them. Though they represent the places as they now are, they hold good for the times of the Crusades, for nature and man, and the works of man, are unchangeable in the East.

It may, perhaps, seem to some persons, that the piety of the Christians and Mohammedans of those times is praised too highly, and their superstition treated in too gentle terms. The only reply is, that they are represented as they were; that piety, though ill-directed, may be, and in the present cases evidently was, sincere; that wẻ should pity rather than rail at error and superstition, and when we contemplate them, feel grateful to the Author of all good for the superior degree of light which it has pleased Him to bestow on us.

T. K.