OR, PASSAGES IN THE LIFE OF AN UNSUCCESSFUL MAN. BY THE AUTHOR OF "DIGBY GRAND." 250.b.123. LONDON: CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193 PICCADILLY. 1861. PREFACE. MR. NOGO has been induced to publish the following random sketches, by the favour with which they were received in the pages of the Sporting Magazine. That they are but an unconnected series of scenes and occurrences, usually resulting in his own discomfiture and disappointment, he is obliged in common candour to confess. That a simple relation of such untoward facts may deter others from follies to which they have no inclination, and efforts of which they are physically incapable, is the earnest hope of a disgusted individual, whose only claim to consideration is his invariable prominence as AN UNSUCCESSFUL MAN. Munchausen Club, TILBURY NOGO. CHAPTER I. Fortune is Bardolph's foe, and frowns on him. To fling the billows from the drenched hair, It is the prevailing cant of the day, to uphold intensity of purpose and force of will as being equal to and commensurate with energy of mind and power of body. Had it but been so, I, Tilbury Nogo, might truly have achieved success; but, alas! like the comforter and consoler of Sempronius, I can only congratulate myself on having deserved it. Before entering upon the thrilling relation of some of my adventures in civilized life, and the detail of my many attempts at distinction and success, it may not be amiss, in these genealogical days, when the landed gentry of this favoured country-from the cotton-lord of yesterday, who has just completed the purchase of his hundred thousand acres, to the sturdy yeoman, who himself tills the profitless soil that barely keeps him from starvation-must all and each be handed down to posterity, with their imaginary ancestors, on the golden page of history, as emblazoned by B |