Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. During many years’ reading, with ever fresh enjoyment, of Peacock’s novels, I had until quite the other day – indeed until a time later than that at which I undertook the pleasant duty of writing this preface – been unable to understand what special model the author had had before him in these unique performances. Lord Houghton had noticed, and nobody who had any knowledge of the subject was likely to gainsay, the obvious indebtedness of Peacock to the French tale-tellers of the eighteenth century from Anthony Hamilton to Pigault-Lebrun – though, by the way, Lord Houghton’s attribution of the Compere Mathieu to Pigault-Lebrun was a mistake, or more probably a slip of memory. But in the model which Hamilton set, which Voltaire borrowed, and which others imitated from Voltaire, there was a very great deal which is quite different from Peacock – different not merely in the details (where difference was necessary, considering the time and country of the writers), but in other ways much more important. I had not solved the problem when, some nine years since, I first wrote about Peacock in Macmillan’s Magazine, and I have not noticed that anybody has ever solved it.
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