A WORD AT PARTING.

"L'envoy is an epilogue, or discourse, to make plain

Some obscure precedence that hath before been sain.

I will example it."

LOVE'S LABOUR LOST.

A WORD AT PARTING.

I HAVE now completed the selection of those among my various lucubrations which I design for the public eye; and, lest the reader shall have failed to discover their excellence, am here bound to deliver upon compulsion my reasons for having inflicted a whole volume upon him. In truth, like other great authors, I have not printed without the advice of friends. On consulting my nephew upon the case, I was told by him that the foregoing papers can scarcely yield in importance and interest to my grand forthcoming work on the Pike. I was puzzled to

discover whether he intended this opinion in sober seriousness or irony; for it savoured most strongly, after the true manner of his profession, of a double construction. But, be it as it might, I had too much respect for that excellent body, the public, to admit the possibility of likening their judgment to his. As my mind, however, still misgave me upon the propriety of hazarding one iota of the splendid reputation which my great book is designed to secure to me, by the publication of a bundle of insignificant essays, I deemed it prudent to confer with another and more than the young lawyer. But the difficulty was whom then to take into my counsels. O'Grady, unhappily for me, has been shooting in the Highlands for the last two months, and I can only sigh in vain for his presence and opinion. Over a brace of the birds, by whose arrival he is ever and anon convincing me that Humphrey is not forgotten in his sport, and with the aid of a

sedate personage personage than the

bottle of my milky sherry, I have little doubt we should have settled the question admirably. But it is difficult to say how far his modesty would have permitted that record of his worth, which, however it may interest the world, has, at least, to me afforded the most grateful occupation of my careless hours. And let this, my old and true friend! be my excuse that I have made free with thy name, and extended the light of thy virtues.

I have said that my mind misgave me after consultation with Master Edward, and that O'Grady being absent, I knew not where to turn for advice. My nephew, holding the country and country people in sovereign contempt, increased my embarrassment by the declaration that no man in his senses would ever think of seeking a literary opinion beyond the purlieus of the metropolis; and I was in despair, just meditating a visit to London, to procure judgment upon my MS. when a sudden thought shot across me. I