SHORES OF VESPUCCI; OR ROMANCE WITHOUT FICTION. "Lend me your ears and patience, my good sirs LEXINGTON Ms. PUBLISHED BY M. TUFTS. 1833. Tufto * Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year, 1833, by M. TUFTS, and in the Clerk's office of the district of Massachusetts. This book is intended to afford a SKETCH OF THE MORE ROMANTIC FEATURES OF PERSONAL HISTORY, SCENES AND ACTIONS IN AMERICA, FROM THE EARLI EST TO THE PRESENT time; and to combine in so doing the interest of romance with the truth of history. The design is believed to be original; nothing of the kind is known to exist. For it is not one of those deluding Romances of History or Real Life, which after all are only novels; nor is it one of those storybooks, improperly so termed, which are merely popu lar abridgments of national history. There are perhaps few duller books than even Scott's Tales of France. We must not be gulled by the catching titles which cunning publishers are sometimes apt to impose on their progeny. However dull this production may be, it is authentic; not a single fictitious sentence is knowingly allowed in it; the reader is referred to the authority, annexed to every tale, for the truth of all it contains. Fiction in literature is like alcohol among fluids; and there is need of a reformation in the literary world as well as among hard drinkers. The evil grows surprisingly. Is it possible that intelligent people can be made to swallow such draughts? What can stand against that simple but knock-down-argument, It is a Lie? Will you casuistically evade it by saying, that fiction is no wilful deceit? Yet it operates in the same The wile of the story quickly seduces the reader into a belief that all is true; he receives it Bona-fide; he opens his mouth, and receives the impres sion into his inmost soul, if he does not bury it there beneath a rising sigh. Hear what the great master of fiction has himself testified against it. manner. Wo to the youth whom Fancy gains, |