DEDICATION. PR449n 1831 To J. H. REYNOLDS, Esq. DEAR REYNOLDS, Induced to this reprint by a series of Illustrations from the pencil of an Artist whose genius you highly estimate ;-remembering some partiality you have expressed for the Poem itself;—and, above all, that you stand nearest to me in a stricter form of the brotherhood which the Dream is intended to enforce ; I feel that I cannot inscribe it more appropriately or more willingly than to yourself. It will be accepted I know, with the kind feeling which is mutual between you and Your's ever truly, THOMAS HOOD. M601779 PREFACE. THE remarkable name of Eugene Aram, belonging to a man of unusual talents and acquirements, is unhappily associated with a deed of blood as extraordinary in its details as any recorded in our calendar of crime. In the year 1745, being then an Usher, and deeply engaged in the study of Chaldee, Hebrew, Arabic, and the Celtic dialects, for the formation of a Lexicon, he abruptly turned over a still darker page in human knowledge, and the brow that learning might have made illustrious, was stamped ignominious for ever with the brand of Cain. To obtain a trifling property, he concerted with an accomplice, and with his own hand effected, the violent death |