PREFACE. FOR the fifth time, like the annual Woodcock, I make my autumnal appearance; and, according to his habit, am to be found in the same haunt as the year before, frequenting leaves, and wood, and covers. Since the last season I have taken many flights, far and near, and with all my little power of suction have plied my bill around the springs of the Humorous and the Comic, which are, in the words of Bewick, "oozing rills that are rarely frozen." In such plashy nooks the woodcock is said to plump himself up in a single night,—and the sportsman who beats these pages in pursuit of mirth, must judge whether I have employed my time in laughing and growing fat, according to the proverb. Should I be received with the same relish and welcome as that estimable bird of passage, I shall indeed consider myself as "flushed To descend from metaphor, and stoop, as Pope says, to truth, I feel a sincere Captain Ross-like pleasure in re-appearing before my friends; although I cannot expect quite so pointed and fervent a welcome as a gentleman whose absence has kept all his well-wishers sitting on magnetic pins and needles. It is likely, therefore, that the Lord Mayor will not ask me to feast with him; but I am given to understand that eleven copies of my volume will certainly be invited to Stationers'-Hall. This, to an author, is more than enough of civic distinction. |