University of Virginia Library

INTRODUCTION.

I MUST confess that I feel diffident in entering
upon the work which I have taken in hand.
Very few know what it is to assume the position
that I now occupy; viz., endeavoring to entertain
the public with a record of the observations, fancies,
history, and feelings of one's own family. Many people
do this in a quiet way; but I am not aware that
it has heretofore been undertaken in the unblushing
manner which I propose to myself.

I shall expect misrepresentation and calumny. It
will not surprise me to find some squeamish individual

of the Fudge family denying my claim to membership,
and roundly asserting that I am not the
Tony Fudge I profess to be. I am prepared for
such denial.

I shall expect the Widow Fudge to refuse all
sanction of my papers as veritable history, and to
declare stoutly that the writer is an impostor; and
that such incidents as I may set down, in my simplicity,
are utterly without foundation, and entirely
unknown to herself, as well as to every respectable
member of the Fudge family. I shall expect the
Miss Fudges to turn up their noses at many little
expressions of moral doctrine which will come into
my record, and to sneer publicly at my portraits of
their habits and tastes. I shall, without doubt, be
disputed by them on the score of age, clearness of
complexion, accomplishments, and such other matters
as may make good the pictures of my excellent
second cousins, the Miss Fudges. For this, I am
prepared.

I shall furthermore expect that Mrs. Phœbe
Fudge will utterly deny my statements with respect
to her weight. I doubt even if she will admit the
truth of what I shall have to say regarding her
public charities, and her interest in the Society for
the Relief of Respectable Indigent Females. She
will very possibly deny the truth of any comparisons

I may draw between her expenses at Lawson's, and
her droppings into the poor-box of Dr. Muddleton's
church. The chances are large in favor of her
repudiation of all relationship with any man who
calls himself Tony Fudge; and of the additional
assertion, that such individual can never have seen
good society, and must therefore be thoroughly
ignorant of whatever concerns herself. Indeed, I
am prepared for it.

Mr. Solomon Fudge, her husband, who is another
estimable member of the Fudge family, I shall expect
to trouble himself very little about my remarks,
so long as I confine myself to his wife's foibles, her
virtues, or her boudoir; these are matters which
concern him very little; but when I touch upon the
gentleman's financial engagements, or upon some
recent suspension, when moneyed rates “ruled high”
(whereby some few small friends subsided into
insolvency), I shall anticipate a certain fidgety
manner, and an abrupt refusal of all kinship with
his very excellent nephew, Tony. I am prepared
for this.

It would seem that I was undertaking a very
odious employ, in thus provoking the wanton
assaults of so many members of my own family. But
I shall be consoled with the reflection, that I am
doing no inconsiderable service to the public, as well

as elevating the Fudge family into a certain historic
dignity.

There are few people, after all, who will not risk
a great deal of their modesty, and a very respectable
fraction of their morals, for the sake of a prominent
position in the public eye; and however much
my dear cousins, and kin of all sorts, who come
under the Fudge arms, may rail at my indiscretion,
and my lack of breeding, they will, I venture to
say, hug the éclat which my rambling record will
give to their character and name.

With this much of preface, which I contend is
more to the purpose than most of the prefaces of
the day, I shall enter at once upon my design.