"Your counsel,' quoth Panurge, under your correction and favour, seemeth unto me not unlike to the song of Gammer Yea-by-Nay. It is full of sarcasms, mock queries, bitter taunts, nipping bobs, derisive quips, biting jerks, and contradictory iterations, the one part destroying the other.'"-RABELAIS. "I, too, am in love with this green Earth- the face of Town and Country-the unspeakable rural Solitudes, and the sweet security of Streets." VOL. I. LONDON: HENRY COLBURN, PUBLISHER, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 1838. 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 perceive~~ and 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 |