TO THE READER 



IT was primarily for my own convenience that the first 

 volume of these disjointed notes was published just a 

 quarter of a century ago. Memory is a slippery jade, 

 and requires to be jogged pretty frequently by some 

 form of written record if impressions received from 

 seasons, scenes, and books are not to fade into oblivion. 

 Manuscript memoranda being unhandy for reference, 

 methought it would be a luxury to have them trans- 

 figured into print and bound in a volume wherewith a 

 few friends, sharing the writer's fads, might beguile an 

 odd half-hour. It never was in contemplation at that 

 time that the volume should be the first of a series. 

 That it has been followed by six others must be attri- 

 buted in large measure to the attractive form in which 

 they have been presented to the public by Mr. Edward 

 Arnold. 



It was inevitable that many blunders should be per- 

 petrated in a miscellany of this kind, wherein one who 

 is fully conscious of his limitations has touched upon 

 so wide a variety of subjects. He feels, therefore, that 

 his first duty in presenting a fresh volume of adver- 

 saria is to offer such atonement as lies in his power by 

 exposing the worst of these blunders in a pillory. 



' Cum relego scripsisse pudet, quia plurima cerno 

 Me quoque qute fuerant judice digna lini.' 



V 



738370 



