Sastra Inggris -Novel

PREFACE. As it is Mr. Waterton's opinion that ravens are gradually becoming extinct in England, I offer a few words here about mine. The raven in this story is a compound of two great originals, of whom I have been, at different times, the proud possessor. The first was in the bloom of his youth, when he was discovered in a modest retirement in London, by a friend of mine, and given to me. He had from the first, as Sir Hugh Evans says of Anne Page, " good gifts," which he improved by study and attention in a most exemplary manner. He slept in a stable ? generally on horseback ? and so terrified a Newfoundland dog by his preternatural sagacity, that he has been known, by the mere superiority of his genius, to walk off unmolested with the dog's dinner, from before his face. He was rapidly rising in acquirements and virtues, when, in an evil hour, his stable was newly painted. He observed the workmen closely, saw that they were careful of the paint