Epistle to the Reader.

Worthy Reader:

In good faith I am fain to confess with Charles Lamb, that "my reading hath been lamentably desultory and immethodical-odd and out-of-the-way"-albeit I ought gratefully to acknowledge an acquaintance with some of the selectest and most pleasurable of "men, women and books." Moreover, it hath been my wont ofttimes to retreat from the illusive shows of the gay, yet guileful world, and seek some quiet nook in a library, or shady and sequestered by-path, that I might muse over whatsoever I had read, seen or heard: for, sooth to say, I have not been so unthrifty as not to treasure up sundry choice facts and fancies in the storehouse of memory. Yet memory, not always faithful to her trust, but, methinks, resembling too oft a wayward and capricious sprite, defying our chase, hath moved me to note down from time to time

such divers goodly things as I have gathered, so that at length I have accumulated no mean assemblage of notabilia and memorabilia, all which (I say it covertly in thine ear) I lovingly cherish.

Furthermore, honest friend, having found no little entertainment myself, in conning over these heterogeneous collectanea of my portfolio, I venture to conclude that their presentation to thee in a classified form might not prove unacceptable. This essay, as indicated by its title, will be found many-hued and prismatic, comprising the essence of many minds concentrated upon given subjects. Taste hath been said to differ with the objects of taste; the topics discussed, therefore, have been studiously varied; so that if one should fail to felicitate thy fancy, another, perchance, may charm and beguile thee-as radiant flowers entice, some by their fragrant breath, others by their blushing beauty. It hath been affirmed that "the man whose book is filled with quotations, but creeps along the shores of authorship, as if he were afraid to trust himself to the free compass of reasoning;" yet saith another wit of olden time, "I would rather defend such authors by a different allusion, and ask, whether honey is the worse by being gathered from many flowers?" "Quotation, sir, is a good thing," quoth Dr. Johnson, "there is a community of mind in it." Another notable scribe also recommendeth the concentrating of the

* Swift.

diffused rays of wit and learning in authors, so as to make them point with warmth and quickness upon the reader's imagination. Furthermore, hath not D'Israeli, Montaigne and Southey, with Bacon, Burton, and others of illustrious memory thus indulged their vagrant fancy, and gratified their readers thereby? In like manner, albeit very imperfectly, have I essayed to garner up these "gleaned thoughts of wise spirits," which have been gained from " almost every latitude and longitude, and sometimes from the opposite poles of thought."

I have somewhere read that that writer doth the most good who giveth his reader the most knowledge, and taketh from him the least time: and certes in this degenerate age of unfruitful reading, it may not be deemed an act of great temerity, modestly to present something that shall savor of the utile et dulce. Perchance it may repel the weak; it will arouse and attract the stronger, and increase their strength by making them exert it. "In the sweat of the brow, is the mind, as well as the body, to eat its bread."* Worthy Montaigne hath quaintly compared his book to "a thread that binds together the flowers of others, and that by incessantly pouring the waters of a few good old authors into his sieve, some drops fall upon his paper." I, forsooth, have sought to emulate his industry in garnering up

*Guesses at Truth.

"Some odds and ends,

With homely truths, too trite to be sublime;
And many a moral scattered here and there--
Not very new, nor yet the worse for wear."

In fine, the following pages comprise the selections, excerpts, pleasant passages, pencillings, jottings-down, and occasional memoranda of much miscellaneous reading; the pleasure-toils of leisure intervals snatched from the hours devoted to the sterner duties of life. They may seem desultory chapters; if so, they may suit desultory readers; and if thou art of that order, so much the better both for thyself, and—the book.

66

Brevity in writing," according to the modern clerical wit,* "is what charity is to all other virtues-righteousness is nothing without the one, nor authorship without the other.”

"A verse may find him who a sermon flies,

And turn delight into a sacrifice."

It hath been my endeavor to infuse into these pages as much of the cayenne of quaint conceit, and the Attic salt of wit, with the more solid elements of ancient lore and philosophic acumen as might comport with true taste; believing with our modern humorist,† that a "single burst of mirth is worth a whole season full of cries, with melancholy." Pri'thee, then, bring with thee a mirthful spirit, and then fall on to what hath

* Sydney Smith.

+ Hood.

been spread before thee. Mayhap, thou wilt catch, while these gladsome, though motley pages pass under thine eye, somewhat of their "sweet infection." "A cheerful philosophy is the best in all seasons, especially in dull weather, since it beguiles one of its gloom." Old Sir Thomas Overbury hath quaintly remarked: "Wit is brushwood-judgment, timber; the one giveth the greatest flame, the other yieldeth the durablest heat, and both meeting make the best fire.” If, in olden times, quirks and quips, and jokes and jibes were often indulged at the expense of modest wisdom; an attempt to combine their good essence, would, methinks, scarce demand apology. What follows, then, hath been hunted up, brushed. up, and picked up-from heaps of rubbish, from old books and new books, some covered with the dust and cobwebs of literary catacombs-some decked with the modern adornments of art and skill-some grave, some gay-but all possessing something quaint, pungent or picturesque. This tome, which I now, in good faith, commend to thy candor, might have been spun out to much greater extent, did I not agree with a good old divine,* that "a little plot of ground thick sown, is better than a great field, which for the most part of it, lies fallow;" and with a modern writer,f that “ a book should be luminous, but not voluminous." If, peradventure, these my gleanings from the fertile fields of literature fail to

* Norris, of Bemerton.

+ C. N. Bovee.