Page:Armatafragment00ersk.djvu/218

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POSTSCRIPT. ¬I have felt great difficulty in consenting to publish, at present, what is now offered to the world. — I was aware that, after having described in all its details so extraordinary a passage to an unknown world, it could not but give an air of fable to the whole of it, to be seen sallying forth from Mr. Murray's in Albemarle-street, without a single word having been said of the means by which I got back again to the earth. The scale was however turned in favour of immediate publication. — The loss of my manu- script, when I was shipwrecked in Ireland on my homeward voyage, was irretrievable, and I had no choice left after my return to England, but to publish at once what remained of it, or to let curiosity languish, or perhaps be considered as an impostor. — There was another inducement to pursue this course. — If the public shall take no interest in the part now before it, the other ¬had ¬ /n