THE MAN ABOUT TOWN. BY CORNELIUS WEBBE, AUTHOR OF "GLANCES AT LIFE," ETC. "Your counsel,' quoth Panurge, under your correction and favour, seemeth unto "I, too, am in love with this green Earth - the face of Town and Country- -the VOL. I. LONDON: HENRY COLBURN, PUBLISHER, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. PREFACE. IN hastily glancing among these papers, now that they have gone through the press, and wear that fixed, small-pica stare, which is so apt to frighten your author, who is valiant enough while he looks at his handiwork in manuscript, I can perceiveand am affected accordingly-many errors, literal, verbal, and others: for all which written, and now printed sins, and for many more, not so much upon the surface whether they be sins of commission or of omission, I have but one apology immediately at hand, which I shall have great pleasure in But I perceive that the gracious Reader is extremely happy without an unhappiness, and most agreeably willing to waive any apology; and that he seems, quietly, to express in every line of his good-humoured countenance, Oh, no apology, I beg, my dear Sir ! I'm very sure I—no person more so-in fact, I was about to say-in short, pray take a chair, for you must be tired, after so much rambling; and when you feel yourself perfectly refreshed-and quite competent to make the handsome apology you are so very capable of making, no doubt of it-you will, if you please, say not one word more upon the subject: for, as the old proverb hath it, 'The least said is' -but you appear to know the economy there is in saying little or nothing when much might be said. Offer no further apology, then, I intreat: for, to vary the old tag-line a little, "On their demerits modest men are dumb!'" As I always listen to reason, when it puts a pleasant face upon what it has to remark or advise; and as I am, in general, anxious not to "inflict my tediousness" upon a friend-(for, if anybody is entitled to have it, it should be some indifferent person)—I shall postpone the particular apology I was about to offer, and shall content myself with a general one, which will, I hope, be taken in good part, both by the patient Reader, and the impatient Reader, who justly hates long graces to short commons. I will, therefore, simply and sincerely say, that |