one fraction of a chance, skim o'er the page, lightly as Camilla o'er a field of standing corn -id est, if the book happens to fall open at the place, as all young ladies' prayer-books do at "The Solemnization, &c."-but, believe us, not otherwise. What then?-why nothing partic❜lar. We have made our tour-and furthermore, we have written our book. Know ye that the first we fully intended to do but as to the second part of the affair, that we had no determination of doing (save our own private notes)-yet it is done. How it came about in the previous instance, it is hard to say— harder than iron ;-no matter-fifty thousand things happen in this world, for which there is no accounting :-but it is done. The walk was much to undertake in idea but verily, it was far more to accomplish in deed. Well do I remember the time when I could run about as actively as the best of two-legged animals;-but those days are no more and I am only astonished, that although in my youth deprived of nearly “half my understanding," I have been able to complete that which my unfibbing volumes declare I have done. There is no vanity in feeling astonished at myself in this-i'faith, no -there is no cause. Did I now possess the two good and straight legs which I once wore, and which I see appended to my corpus with the mind's eye of recollection, I should hint nothing at the feat:-but I do say, even of myself, that when I look back on my wanderings over hill and mountain, enveloped in the clouds thousands of feet high-down under ground hundreds of feet deep-over rock and precipice-through heat and cold sunshine and rain-that it was a great deal for me to do;-and I moreover think, that I shall never do the like again. My book is published.-I wrote not for fame -neither for fortune:-I will not say I have either no matter. I am selfish enough to avow that I have written for my own amusement, and not with the studied intention of amusing others. If, however, by a chance, these pages fall into the hands of those who feel amused by them there is no harm done. If, whilst I write for my own amusement, my time be employed to my own improvement,-there is an advantage gained. If, whilst I write for my own improvement, and this my writing fall into the hands of those who may thereby be improved there is a double advantage gained. But this last supposition is vanity.— Stop-we are getting egotistic and prosy this will never do-we have changed our key since we began-we have struck a b thirdand how dismal it sounds. This minore is abominable :-let us to the maggiore after the double-bar, as Euterpe used to say. Come, brilliante-scherzosamente presto con fuoco! This is more like it-Will this do better? let us sing and rum-ti-tum for a few minutes, or else we must da capo, and repeat the first strain. And when we have thoroughly blanched our blue devils, we may as well put an end to this most secret preface, volti subito, and peep into the book. Come on. |