University of Virginia Library

L'ENVOY.

In concluding a second volume of the
Sketch Book, the author cannot but express
his deep sense of the indulgence
with which his first has been received,
and of the liberal disposition that has
been evinced to treat him with kindness
as a stranger. Even the critics, whatever
may be said of them by others,
he has found to be a singularly gentle
and good-natured race; it is true that
each has in turn objected to some one or
two articles, and that these individual
exceptions, taken in the aggregate, would
amount almost to a total condemnation of
his work; but then he has been consoled
by observing, that what one has particularly
censured, another has particularly
praised: and thus, the encomiums
being set off against the objections, he
finds his work, upon the whole, commended
far beyond its deserts.

He is aware that he runs a risk of
forfeiting much of this kind favour by
not following the counsel that has been
liberally bestowed upon him; for where
abundance of valuable advice is given
gratis, it may seem a man's own fault if
he should go astray. He only can say,
in his vindication, that he faithfully determined,
for a time, to govern himself
in his second volume by the opinions
passed upon his first; but he was soon
brought to a stand by the contrariety of
excellent counsel. One kindly advised
him to avoid the ludicrous; another to
shun the pathetic; a third assured him
that he was tolerable at description, but
cautioned him to leave narrative alone;
while a fourth declared that he had a
very pretty knack at turning a story,
and was really entertaining when in a
pensive mood, but was grievously mistaken
if he imagined himself to possess a
spark of humour.

Thus perplexed by the advice of his
friends, who each in turn closed some
particular path, but left him all the world
beside to range in, he found that to
follow all their counsels would, in fact,
be to stand still. He remained for a
time sadly embarrassed; when, all at
once, the thought struck him to ramble
on as he had begun; that his work being
miscellaneous, and written for different
humours, it could not be expected that
any one would be pleased with the
whole; but that if it should contain
something to suit each reader, his end
would be completely answered. Few
guests sit down to a varied table with an
equal appetite for every dish. One has
an elegant horror of a roasted pig;
another holds a curry or a devil in utter
abomination; a third cannot tolerate the
ancient flavour of venison and wild-fowl;
and a fourth, of truly masculine stomach,
looks with sovereign contempt on those
knick-knacks, here and there dished up
for the ladies. Thus each article is
condemned in its turn; and yet, amidst
this variety of appetites, seldom does a
dish go away from the table without
being tasted and relished by some one or
other of the guests.

With these considerations he ventures
to serve up this second volume in the
same heterogeneous way with his first;
simply requesting the reader, if he should
find here and there something t