BY
HERMAN MELVILLE.
NEW YORK:
HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS
329 & 331 PEARL STREET,
FRANKLIN SQUARE.
1852.
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Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1852, by
HERMAN MELVILLE,
In the Clerk’s Office of the Southern District of New York.
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TO
Greylock’s Most Excellent Majesty.
IN old times authors were proud of the privilege of dedicating theirworks to Majesty. A right noble custom, which we of Berkshire mustrevive. For whether we will or no, Majesty is all around us here inBerkshire, sitting as in a grand Congress of Vienna of majesticalhill-tops, and eternally challenging our homage.
But since the majestic mountain, Greylock—my own more immediatesovereign lord and king—hath now, for innumerable ages, been the onegrand dedicatee of the earliest rays of all the Berkshire mornings, Iknow not how his Imperial Purple Majesty (royal-born: Porphyrogenitus)will receive the dedication of my own poor solitary ray.
Nevertheless, forasmuch as I, dwelling with my loyal neighbors, theMaples and the Beeches, in the amphitheater over which his centralmajesty presides, have received his most bounteous and unstintedfertilizations, it is but meet, that I here devoutly kneel, and renderup my gratitude, whether, thereto, The Most Excellent Purple Majesty ofGreylock benignantly incline his hoary crown or no.
Pittsfield, Mass.