VI DEDICATION. 



for me that you and others find in it. But I hope these 

 pages will show that I have no narrow notions on a pleasure 

 in which I cannot participate ; but rather a honest detest- 

 ation of that want of Christian tolerance which has induced 

 some persons to denounce a harmless indulgence as if it were 

 a moral evil. I should be untrue to my father's memory — 

 " an honest man and a good smoker" — if I did not contradict 

 such gratuitous imputations. If I am proud of anything, it 

 is of my father and his seventy-two years of industry and 

 integrity. 



That you are " a good smoker " also, I have had experi- 

 ence, at home and abroad, when I have examined in your 

 society many of the finest relics of antiquity, the study of 

 which has been the solace of our lives. In you I shall find a 

 gentle critic : you will estimate, by your own experience, that 

 which few who read consider, the time and trouble requisite 

 to gather into one volume the results of reading many a 

 score ; and I have been embarrassed in my task of con- 

 densation by the abundance rather than the paucity of my 

 materials. 



I will not offer you any laudation here ; friendship is too 

 sacred a thing for public display. I only wish, that while 

 one copy of this little book remains, it should exist to record 

 the sincere esteem I feel for you. 



F. W. FAIRHOLT. 



11 Montpelier Square, 



Buomi'tw, London, 



Jane 1, 1S59. 



