CHARLES ROACH SMITH, Esq., 



of temple place, strood, kent. 



My Dear Friend, 



It was a custom with the old English authors 

 to dedicate their works to persons for whom they felt 

 esteem ; and to make such dedications serve as familiar pre- 

 faces. I desire, in this instance, to revive the practice ; and 

 I inscribe your name on this page. 



You, who know my early history, will feel no surprise at 

 my choice of subject. Born in London, and never having 

 been out of sight of St. Paul's until I had reached my 

 twenty-second year, the tobacco-warehouse, where my father 

 worked, became my play-ground ; and my first remembrances 

 are, of rolling in the tobacco-leaf, as country children would 

 roll in a hay-field, and playing at " hide-and-seek " in the 

 empty barrels. In after years, when I helped my father to 

 manufacture many hundred pounds of tobacco-leaf, I little 

 thought that my pen and pencil would be called into use over 

 a book like this. I am willing to think, however, that the 

 peculiarities of my early training have here been of use. 



Disliking my father's trade, and, through many difficulties, 

 happily emancipating myself, tobacco had not that charm 



