NOTA BENE. By default of the decypherer, we are forced to leave the blank space before "Numeris" unfilled; a part of the work, we fear, still re maining in the Encephalic character, a sort of SANS-SCRIPT, much used, we understand, by adepts in the occult sciences, as likewise for promissory notes. We should also apologize for the indiscretion of our author in his epistolary preface (seduced by the wish of killing two birds with one stone,) in shutting up vis a vis, as it were, so respectable and comprehensive (not to say synodical,) a personage as THE READER with Dick Proof, corrector of what press, we know not, unless, as we grievously suspect, he is in the employ of Messrs Dash, Asterisk, Anon, and Company. Nor is this all; this impropriety being aggravated by sundry passages, exclusively relating and addressed to this Mr Proof, which have an effect on the series of thoughts common to both the parties, not much unlike that, which a parenthesis or two of links, made of dandelion stems, might be supposed to produce in my Lord Mayor or Mr Sheriff's gold chain. In one flagrant instance, with which the first paragraph in the MSS. concluded, we have, by virtue of our editorial prerogative, degraded the the passage to the place and condition of a Note.-EDITOR. VOL. XI. Мотто.* "How wishedly will some pity the case of ARGALUS and PARTHENIA, the patience of GRYSELD in Chaucer, the misery and troublesome adventures of the phanatic (phrenetic?) lovers in Cleopatra, Cassandra, Amadis de Gaul, Sidney, and such like! Yet all these are as mere romantic as Rabelais his Garagantua. And yet with an unmoved apprehension, can peruse the very dolorous and lamentable murder of MILCOLUMB the First, the cutting off the head of good KING ALPINUS, the poisoning of FERGUSIUS the Third by his own queen, and the throat-cutting of KING FETHELMACHUS by a fiddler! nay, and moreover, even the martyrdom of old QUEEN KETABAN in Persia, the stabbing of Henry Fourth in France, the sacrilegious poisoning of Emperor Henry Seventh in Italy, the miserable death of MAURICIUS the Emperor, with a wife and five children, by wicked PHOCAS, -can read, I say, these and the like fatal passages, recorded by holy fathers and grave chroniclers, with less pity and compassion than the shallow loves of Romeo for his Juliet in Shakespeare_his deplorable tragedies, or shun the pitiful wanderings of Lady Una in search of her stray Red-cross, in Master Spenser his quaint rhymes. Yea, the famous doings, and grievous sufferings of our own anointed kings, may be far outrivalled in some mens minds by the hardships of some enchanted innamorato in Ariosto, Parismus, or the two Palmerins." FOULIS'S History of the Wicked Plots and Conspiracies, &c. Мотто ІІ. "Pray, why is it that people say that men are not such fools now-a-days as they were in the days of yore? I would fain know, whether you would have us understand by this same saying, as indeed you logically may, that formerly men were fools, and in this generation are grown wise. How many and what dispositions made them fools ? How many, and what dispositions were wanting to make 'em wise? Why were those fools? How should these be wise? Pray, how came you to know that men were formerly fools? How did you find that they are now wise? Who made them fools? Who in Heaven's name made them wise? Who d'ye think are most, those that loved mankind foolish, or those that love it wise? How long has it been wise? How long otherwise? Whence proceeded the foregoing folly? Whence the following wisdom? Why did the old folly end now and no later? Why did the modern wisdom begin now and no sooner? What were we the worse for the former folly? What the better for the succeeding wisdom? How should the ancient folly have come to nothing? How should this same new wisdom be started up and established? Now answer me, an't please you." FRANCIS RABELAIS' Preface to his Fifth Book. EPISTLE Premonitory for THE READER; but contra-monitory and in reply to DICK PROOF, Corrector. Of the sundry sorts of vice, Richard, that obtain in this sinful world, one of the most troublesome is advice, and no less an annoyance to my feelings, than a pun is to thine. "Lay your scene further off!!" Was ever historian before affronted by so wild a suggestion? If, indeed, the moods, measures, and events of the last six years, insular and continental, or the like of that, had been the title and subject matter of the work; and you had then advised the transfer of the scene to Siam and Borneo, or to Abyssinia and the Isle * Which Posterity is requested to reprint at the back of the title-page, for the present, Quo' North, quo' Blackwood, quo' concessere Columnæ. + In biography, (which, by the bi, reminds me of a rejoinder made to me, nigh 30 years ago, by Parsons the Bookseller, on my objecting to sundry anecdotes in a MS. Life, that did more credit to the wit and invention of the author, than to his honesty and veracity. " In a professed biography, Mr P." quoth I, pleadingly, and somewhat syllabically. Biography, sir," interrupted he, " Sellography is what I want." have made a W. S. but that a W. S. is only of God's making, " nascitur non fit,") to Snow Hill, Breckneck Stairs, or Little Hell in Westminster -by going to which last named place, Dick, when we were at the school, you evaded the guilt of foreswearing for telling of me to our master, after you had sworn that you would go to -, if you did-well knowing where you meant me to understand you, and where in honour you ought to have gone-but this may be mended in time. -And lay the time further back! But why, Richard? I pray thee tell me, why? The present, you reply, is not the age of the supernatural. Well, and if I admit, that the age at present is so fully attached to the unnatural in taste, the præternatural in life, and the contra-natural in philosophy, as to have little room left for the super-natural-yet what is this to the purpose? I cannot antedate the highly respectable personage, into whose company I have presumed to bring you I may make THE READER sleep, but I cannot make him one of the Seven Sleepers, to awake at my request for the first time since he fell into his long nap over the Golden Legend, or the Vision of Alberic! Or does the reader, thinkst thou, believe that witch and wizard, gnome, nymph, sylph, and salamander, did exist in those days; but that, like the mammoth and megatherim, the race is extinct? Will he accept as fossiles, what he would reject as specimens fresh caughtherein differing widely from the old woman, who, as the things were said to have happened so far off and so long ago, hoped in God's mercy, there was not a word of truth in them? Thou mayst think this, Richard, but I will neither affront the reader by attributing to him a faith so dependent on dates, nor myself, whose history is a concave mirror, not a glass case of mummies, stuffed skins of defunct monsters, and the anomalous accidents of nature. Thus, Richard, might I multiply thy objection, but that I detest the cui bono, when it is to be a substitute for the quid veri. Nor will I stop at present to discuss thy insinuation against the comparative wisdom of the sires of our great grandsires, though at some future time I would fain hear thy answers to the doubts and queries in my second motto, originally started by Master Rabelais, in that model of true and perpetual history, the Travels of Garagantua and his friends. Without condescending to non-suit you by the flaws in your indictment, I assert the peculiar fitness of this age, in which, by way of compromising the claims of memory and hope, the rights both of its senior and of its junior members, I comprize the interval from 1770 to 1870. An adventurous position, but for which the age, I trust, will be " my good masters"-the more so, that I must forego one main help towards establishing the characteristic epithets rightfully appertaining to its emblazonment-namely, an exposè of its own notions, of its own morals and philo– sophy. But Truth, I remember, is reported to have already lost her front teeth (dentes incisores et prehensiles) by barking too close at the heels of a restive fashion : a second blow might leave her blind as well as toothless. Besides, a word in your ear, Richard Proof, I do not half trust you. I mean, therefore, to follow Petrarch's * example, and confine my confidence on these points to a few dear friends and revered benefactors, to whom I am in the habit of opening out my inner man in the world of spirits a world which the eyes of the profane vulgar" would probably mistake for a garret floored and wainscoated with old books; tattered folios, to wit, and massive quartos in no better plight. For the due nutriment, however, of * The passage here alluded to, I should, as an elevated strain of eloquence warm from the heart of a great and good man, compare to any passage of equal length in Cicero. I have not the folio edition of Petrarch's works by me (by the bye, the worst printed book in respect of blunders I know of, not excepting even Anderson's British Poets) and cannot therefore give any particular reference. But it is my purpose to offer you some remarks on the Latin Works of Petrarch, with a few selections, at a future opportunity. It is pleasing to contemplate in this illustrious man, at once the benefactor of his own times, and the delight of the succeeding, and working on his contemporaries most beneficially by that portion of his works, which is least in account with his posterity. S. T. C. Мотто.* "How wishedly will some pity the case of ARGALUS and PARTHENIA, the patience of GRYSELD in Chaucer, the misery and troublesome adventures of the phanatic (phrenetic?) lovers in Cleopatra, Cassandra, Amadis de Gaul, Sidney, and such like! Yet all these are as mere romantic as Rabelais his Garagantua. And yet with an unmoved apprehension, can peruse the very dolorous and lamentable murder of MILCOLUMB the First, the cutting off the head of good KING ALPINUS, the poisoning of FERGUSIUS the Third by his own queen, and the throat-cutting of KING FETHELMACHUS by a fiddler! nay, and moreover, even the martyrdom of old QUEEN KETABAN in Persia, the stabbing of Henry Fourth in France, the sacrilegious poisoning of Emperor Henry Seventh in Italy, the miserable death of MAURICIUS the Emperor, with a wife and five children, by wicked PHOCAS, -can read, I say, these and the like fatal passages, recorded by holy fathers and grave chroniclers, with less pity and compassion than the shallow loves of Romeo for his Juliet in Shakespeare_his deplorable tragedies, or shun the pitiful wanderings of Lady Una in search of her stray Red-cross, in Master Spenser his quaint rhymes. Yea, the famous doings, and grievous sufferings of our own anointed kin kings, may be far outrivalled in some mens minds by the hardships of some enchanted innamorato in Ariosto, Parismus, or the two Palmerins." FOULIS'S History of the Wicked Plots and Conspiracies, &c. Мотто ІІ. "Pray, why is it that people say that men are not such fools now-a-days as they were in the days of yore? I would fain know, whether you would have us understand by this same saying, as indeed you logically may, that formerly men were fools, and in this generation are grown wise. How many and what dispositions made them fools ? How many, and what dispositions were wanting to make 'em wise? Why were those fools? How should these be wise? Pray, how came you to know that men were formerly fools? How did you find that they are now wise? Who made them fools? Who in Heaven's name made them wise? Who d'ye think are most, those that loved mankind foolish, or those that love it wise? How long has it been wise? How long otherwise? Whence proceeded the foregoing folly? Whence the following wisdom? Why did the old folly end now and no later? Why did the modern wisdom begin now and no sooner? What were we the worse for the former folly? What the better for the succeeding wisdom? How should the ancient folly have come to nothing? How should this same new wisdom be started up and established? Now answer me, an't please you." FRANCIS RABELAIS' Preface to his Fifth Book. EPISTLE Premonitory for THE READER; but contra-monitory and in reply to DICK PROOF, Of the sundry sorts of vice, Richard, that obtain in this sinful world, one of the most troublesome is advice, and no less an annoyance to my feelings, than a pun is to thine. "Lay your scene further off!!" Was ever historian before affronted by so wild a suggestion? If, indeed, the moods, measures, and events of the last six years, insular and continental, or the like of that, had been the title and subject matter of the work; and you had then advised the transfer of the scene to Siam and Borneo, or to Abyssinia and the Isle Corrector. of Ormus-there would be something to say for it, verisimilitudinis causa, or on the ground of lessening the improbability of the narrative. But in the history of Maxilian!-Why, the locality, man, is an essential part of the a priori evidence of its truth! * * * * In a biographical work, † the proprieties of place are indispensable, Dick. To prove this, you need only change the scene in the History of Rob Roy from the precipices of Ben Lomond, and the glens and inlets of the Trossacs (the Trossacs worthy to * Which Posterity is requested to reprint at the back of the title-page, for the present, Quo' North, quo' Blackwood, quo' concessére Columnæ. + In biography, (which, by the bi, reminds me of a rejoinder made to me, nigh 30 years ago, by Parsons the Bookseller, on my objecting to sundry anecdotes in a MS. Life, that did more credit to the wit and invention of the author, than to his honesty and veracity. " In a professed biography, Mr P." quoth I, pleadingly, and somewhat syllabically. Biography, sir," interrupted he, " Sellography is what I want." have made a W. S. but that a W. S. is only of God's making, " nascitur non fit,") to Snow Hill, Breckneck Stairs, or Little Hell in Westminster -by going to which last named place, Dick, when we were at the school, you evaded the guilt of foreswearing for telling of me to our master, after you had sworn that you would go to-, if you did-well knowing where you meant me to understand you, and where in honour you ought to have gone-but this may be mended in time. -And lay the time further back! But why, Richard? I pray thee tell me, why? The present, you reply, is not the age of the supernatural. Well, and if I admit, that the age at present is so fully attached to the unnatural in taste, the præternatural in life, and the contra-natural in philosophy, as to have little room left for the super-natural-yet what is this to the purpose? I cannot antedate the highly respectable personage, into whose company I have presumed to bring you I may make THE READER sleep, but I cannot make him one of the Seven Sleepers, to awake at my request for the first time since he fell into his long nap over the Golden Legend, or the Vision of Alberic! Or does the reader, thinkst thou, believe that witch and wizard, gnome, nymph, sylph, and salamander, did exist in those days; but that, like the mammoth and megatherim, the race is extinct? Will he accept as fossiles, what he would reject as specimens fresh caughtherein differing widely from the old woman, who, as the things were said to have happened so far off and so long ago, hoped in God's mercy, there was not a word of truth in them? Thou mayst think this, Richard, but I will neither affront the reader by attributing to him a faith so dependent on dates, nor myself, whose history is a concave mirror, not a glass case of mummies, stuffed skins of defunct monsters, and the anomalous accidents of nature. Thus, Richard, might I multiply thy objection, but that I detest the cui bono, when it is to be a substitute for the quid veri. Nor will I stop at present to discuss thy insinuation against the comparative wisdom of the sires of our great grandsires, though at some future time I would fain hear thy answers to the doubts and queries in my second motto, originally started by Master Rabelais, in that model of true and perpetual history, the Travels of Garagantua and his friends. Without condescending to non-suit you by the flaws in your indictment, I assert the peculiar fitness of this age, in which, by way of compromising the claims of memory and hope, the rights both of its senior and of its junior members, I comprize the interval from 1770 to 1870. An adventurous position, but for which the age, I trust, will be " my good masters"-the more so, that I must forego one main help towards establishing the characteristic epithets rightfully appertaining to its emblazonment-namely, an exposè of its own notions, of its own morals and philosophy. But Truth, I remember, is reported to have already lost her front teeth (dentes incisores et prehensiles) by barking too close at the heels of a restive fashion : a second blow might leave her blind as well as toothless. Besides, a word in your ear, Richard Proof, I do not half trust you. I mean, therefore, to follow Petrarch's * example, and confine my confidence on these points to a few dear friends and revered benefactors, to whom I am in the habit of opening out my inner man in the world of spirits-a world which the eyes of "the profane vulgar" would probably mistake for a garret floored and wainscoated with old books; tattered folios, to wit, and massive quartos in no better plight. For the due nutriment, however, of * The passage here alluded to, I should, as an elevated strain of eloquence warm from the heart of a great and good man, compare to any passage of equal length in Cicero. I have not the folio edition of Petrarch's works by me (by the bye, the worst printed book in respect of blunders I know of, not excepting even Anderson's British Poets) and cannot therefore give any particular reference. But it is my purpose to offer you some remarks on the Latin Works of Petrarch, with a few selections, at a future opportunity. It is pleasing to contemplate in this illustrious man, at once the benefactor of his own times, and the delight of the succeeding, and working on his contemporaries most beneficially by that portion of his works, which is least in account with his posterity. S. T. C. |