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L'ENVOY.

L'ENVOY.

THOUGH long usage has rendered a preface an almost necessary part of a work, a kind of expected "how d'ye do," salute, to neglect which is considered a breach of the courtesy which a writer owes to his readers, I am not equally authorized by custom in prolonging the time of separation by a valedictory address. And yet I feel a kind of reluctance to leave the volume, trifling and insignificant as it is, without a shake of the hand, and a parting "good-bye." The fondness of an author for his works is indeed excessive, and it is not without feelings of regret that he lays down the pen, after adding the finishing stroke to his production. I feel, with

M

Gibbon, a sober melancholy spread over my mind, by the idea that I have taken an everlasting leave of an old and agreeable companion; there is a kind of vacancy in one's daily routine of occupations, and though the task may at times have been irksome, the want of it is felt as an evil.

To spin out sentences in this manner, after the proper termination of the book, may perhaps be deemed egotistical. But, in the writer of tales, this egotism may be forgiven. His chance of fame is slight indeed. Longevity is denied to his labours. The philosopher, politician, divine, or scholar, may endure for ages. What has once been well said, and established in the walks of science, needs not repetition, and is preserved in the works of its author. But, with the writer of amusing volumes, it fares differently. New novelties spring up; to be read, he must have allurements of style; and as style rapidly changes, his writings please no longer. Bacon and Sidney were contemporaries; each was the leader in his own peculiar walk; the Novum Organum is quoted with reverence, and relied on as authority; but the dust accumulates on the unopened tome of the Arcadia.

Farewell then to these, the (at least) harmless amusement of my solitary hours. That they

may amuse his readers, is the highest ambition of the writer. Philosophical theories, or learned researches, he has not to offer. To wile away an idle hour in a not unpleasant, perhaps not unprofitable manner, is all he aspires to. If he succeeds in this, he will be satisfied. Too humble to attract the smile, he will also escape the lash of criticism. How it is received, will matter little to him. In the words of a great moralist he can say, that he dismisses it with tranquillity, having "little to fear or hope from censure or from praise."

J. G. BARNARD,

Skinner Street, London.

THE END.

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