HISTORIC ODDITIES AND STRANGE EVENTS

Book excerpt: A reader of history in its various epochs in different countries, comes upon eccentric individuals and extraordinary events, lightly passed over, may be, as not materially affecting the continuity of history, as not producing any seriously disturbing effect on its course. Such persons, such events have always awakened interest in myself, and when I have come on them, it has been my pleasure to obtain such details concerning them as were available, and which would be out of place in a general history as encumbering it with matter that is unimportant, or of insufficient importance to occupy much space. Two of the narratives contained in this work have appeared already in the "Cornhill Magazine," but I have considerably[Pg viii] enlarged them by the addition of fresh material; some of the others came out in the "Gentleman's Magazine," and one in "Belgravia." With only two of them—"Peter Nielsen" and "A Wax and Honey-Moon"—are the authorities somewhat gone beyond and the facts slightly dressed to assume the shape of stories.