THE DUKE D'ORMOND, A TRAGEDY; AND BERITOLA, A TALE. By CHARLES LLOYD. LONDON: LONG MAN, HURST, REES, ORME, AND BROWN, AND AND BEILBY AND KNOTTS, BIRMINGHAM. PREFACE. THE Tragedy which is contained in the following volume was written twenty-four years ago, though it has since undergone many alterations. The Author mentions this circumstance, because, in many respects, it is not such a performance as, at his present time of life, he would have written. The candid reader must be the judge whether he has been too much influenced by that partiality which all writers, more or less, feel for their own productions, when he has deemed that it is not altogether unworthy of being presented to the public. The Author can truly say, that he sees many imperfections in it; he even questions whether the turn of his mind, which rather leads him to analyze feelings, than to clothe them with the freshness, or to embody them in the flesh and blood vitality, of dramatic composition, does not utterly disqualify him for this species of writing. The Author would just hint that where expectations of success are so doubtful, and where a consciousness of demerit is so deeply felt, even if he |