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TO J. S. REDFIELD, ESQ

My Dear Sir: – The deified heroes of the Norse mythology are believed to spend their afternoons in drinking something stronger than lemonade out of their enemies' skulls, and some ill-natured persons, seizing on the idea, have declared that publishers use the skulls of their authors as drinking-cups, in the same manner. For my own part, I discredit the assertion – as far as my relations with yourself enable me to judge; I suspect that the time has gone by when Napoleon's health was drank as "a friend of literature," because he had shot a bookseller; and I give you unlimited permission to use my skull, in the Norse fashion, provided that you wait until "in death I shall calm recline," when I shall have no further occasion for it. In such case, the least you can do will be to drink my memory, "in solemn silence" – the beverage being whiskey-punch, as a delicate compliment to my country.

Seriously speaking (or writing), however, I take leave to dedicate this volume to you, with the solemn assurance that my doing so must not be taken as – a Bit of Blarney.

The book is Irish – to all intents and purposes, and is put forth with the least possible pretence. It contains Legends – familiar to me in my youth; Stories, which, more or less, are literally "founded upon facts;" recollections of Eccentric Characters, whose peculiarities it would have been difficult to exaggerate; – and Sketches of the two great Irish leaders of the last and present century, Grattan, who won National Independence for Ireland, and O'Connell, who obtained Emancipation for the great majority of his countrymen. The Sketch of the great Agitator has extended almost to a biography – but I knew the man well, and write of him on that knowledge. In this volume he is certainly entitled to a niche, having been the greatest professor of "Blarney" these later days have seen or heard.

Yours faithfully,

R. Shelton Mackenzie

New York, August 20, 1855.