University of Virginia Library

PREFACE.

BY THE EDITOR.

The following essays and sketches originally
appeared in the New-York Mirror,
under the signature of C. In collecting
them for publication, in the present form,
the editor, if he may assume so dignified an
appellation, is actuated by two motives:
first, a desire to do justice to the abilities
of a valued and long absent friend, whose
reluctant consent has been yielded only to
repeated solicitations; and, second, to furnish
for the public a book marked by
humor and originality of thought, and an
agreeable companion for a dull hour.

The editor does not rely solely on his
own estimation of their excellence, although

he thinks the author, what some critic less
appropriately called Milton, “a very good
writer—very!” Many of the articles have
been extensively copied, and one in particular,
after a tour through Great Britain,
was, with a slight alteration of the title,
transplanted into an American paper as a
rare foreigner, and in that capacity gained
a good deal of extra attention; just as a
townsman, dwelling all his life in the midst
of us, dependent only upon good sense and
virtue, may languish in obscurity, but, after
a few years abroad, finds an Italian air and
a pair of moustaches, a passport to the
tables of the wealthy and great. The “Man
of the Fly-market Ferry,” “Passages in the
Life of an Unfortunate,” “The Epicurean,”
the “Biography of Jacob Hays,” “Oysters,”
&c., are curious and amusing specimens of
literary caricatures, completely and justly
turning into ridicule a style of writing bombastically
about nothing, too popular and
common, especially among contributors to
periodicals. They have been highly commended
as satires, at once forcibly and
felicitously drawn.

Another kind of essay will be found in
the succeeding pages, which attract attention,
and surprise one into merriment, by
the novel views taken of hacknied subjects,
and the sly pleasantry with which they
advocate the wrong side of the question.
Among them are the defence of “Idle
People,” the raillery against “Early Rising,”
and the address to the “Marriageable
Ladies of the United States.” No intelligent
reader will believe that the author
intends, in the last, seriously to discountenance
temperance societies, which have
certainly been productive of great benefits
to the nation. It is a mere exhibition of
the irony and talent for burlesquing, in
which he is very successful.

No apology is deemed necessary for introducing

the theatrical portraits, which appear
in the second volume. Although they
are of a transitory nature, most of the subjects
are yet before the public; and, belonging
to a profession, the members of
which are known by their talents to large
classes of people, and generally called to
mind with pleasurable associations—descriptions
of them, like their pictures, are
recognized with interest. Little need be
said of them by the editor, except that the
sketch of Fanny Kemble does no justice to
her present improved talents and brilliant
eminence, and that the badinage directed
against Mr. Richings (who is, seriously, an
excellent and useful actor) must be regarded
as intended good-naturedly, and as
merely the offspring of a merry mood. Mrs.
Sharpe too has improved, in many respects,
since our artist pencilled her features so
rapidly.

There are several local allusions, and hits

at passing events, which might have been
expunged; but the author not being in the
country, the editor was unwilling to alter
the text, and it is hoped that the fact of the
pieces' having been originally composed for
a periodical, will be received as a sufficient
explanation. If discrepancies, deficiencies,
or tautologies be discovered, it will be
recollected that the essays are not deliberately
prepared, revised and corrected
by the author, and put forth by him as specimens
of his abilities; but that they are
mere unpremeditated effusions, struck out
in the heat of the moment, intended but
for a careless, passing glance, and then
to be thrown aside and forgotten. They
were hastily furnished for the Mirror, at the
solicitation of George P. Morris, Esq. a gentleman
to whose discriminating zeal in the
cause of American periodical literature they
owe their existence. The editor trusts that,
on this occasion, criticism will not be inconsiderately
severe, but, instead of coldly repressing
the talent here displayed, that it
will encourage the youthful writer to more
elaborate efforts.