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Preface.
XIII

been trodden; the Spectre-Barber has appeared in the Tales of the Dead, and Kibitz, in the Ladies Magazine, but the first of these translations was given in a mutilated form, nearly one half the tale having been omitted, and Kibitz seems to have been nearly re-written, so that neither interferes with the plan of the present work, where the alterations, with very few exceptions, are purely verbal. But this objection, if it be an objection, is confined to the two legends already mentioned; the remaining tales, to the best of our knowledge, have not hitherto been translated, so that, whatever may be their faults in other respects, they will at least have the merit of novelty with the English reader, and that, though not the highest, is certainly not the least, of commendations.