GARIBALDI: His Life and Times. Comprising the Revolutionary History of Italy from 1789 to the present time. Illustrated with numerous Engravings, and a Coloured Portrait of Garibaldi. LONDON: S. O. BEETON, 248, STRAND, LONDON, W.C. PREFACE. THE HE writers of this book ask indulgence for all sins of commission therein, which they earnestly trust are few, and for all sins of omission in its pages, which they fear are many enough, since none save those who have known Garibaldi well and have stood by his side in times of peace and war, during his adventurous career in the Old and New Worlds, are truly competent to write a full and sufficient memoir of his stirring life. The plea that "we have done it in a hurry" is not a good one, the compilers know, but it is the best and only apology that they can offer for their shortcomings. Their excuse in full, indeed, for any errors that may exist, is found in the form and plan of publication, which has compelled them to search the necessary authorities for the compilation of the volume, and write the whole of it in eighteen weeks, while as many months would not have been too long a time to devote to a book purporting to give an account of the Life and Times of Joseph Garibaldi—the noblest, best, and greatest man of modern times-the Saviour and First Citizen of Italy. The sources from which quotations have been made, and all books from which the writers have drawn materials for their task, have been duly mentioned in foot-notes; and if any extract from works bearing on the subject written by Mariotti, Dandolo, Arrivabene, Ellesmere, Forbes, Chambers, and others, has not been fairly acknowledged, it has arisen from mere inadvertence, and from no desire to evade the duty of rendering "unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar's." LONDON, 248, STRAND, W.C. |