list of errata, it will be scant, and go little way towards giving the fulness which these empty pages crave. The list will, I expect, be as meagre as themselves. Thanks to the diabolical correctness of my printers.-Devils !-They have rather been angel guardians of my feeble, minor (or minus) sense; and served it as faithfully, as the Demon of Socrates once served him.

But the Dedication !-to whom shall it come, hop-ing?-To MY FRIENDS? Alas! when discovered, I fear they will prove too few. Like the comet, they are as yet invisible; but, unlike it, they are not making any approaches, if I be a good observer. My surname is not Find, but Search ; and I have long, and perhaps too diligently and affectionately, sought for them in vain. I do not mean to say, that I am absolutely (God forbid I should be!) without friends. But, still unlike Halley's to-be-refulgent one, they are not to be looked for in high quarters; amongst the sidereal brilliancy of grand crosses; or even twinklers of second though commanding-magnitude.

-

The

first of these, at least, would keep a lofty distance from me; as I humbly hope the comet also will.

Then, the Lords.-Why, these might reject my

pages, without reading them a second time ;* and assuredly would never suffer them to get into comet-tee; (though sent up by a large majority of specially provided and new-made pens;)—and no blame to their Lordships, as my countrymen sometimes say.- In short, my friends, if I have any, are not to be found, amid the blaze of those literal, figurative, or literary stars, whose proud and exalted perquisite all dedications are.

Then shall I direct my kotou TO MY ENEMIES, as a sort of pis aller ?-Amongst these there be some that shine; and, instead of being (like the friendly troop) too few, they may, in more than one sense, have proved too many for me. But their influence I have already found to be the opposite of benign; and I will take the orthodox course, of wishing "that mine enemy would write a book," rather than heretically make him a Dedicatee of mine.

Turning my huffed back upon the present Times, shall I address my introductory petition To PRINCE POSTERITY?+ No: I am not so fulsomely pre

* I believe parliamentary usage would secure them a first reading.

+ Swift has conferred this title on posterity. (See Tale of a Tub.)

sumptuous as that. I fear his Highness might "return the bills," as unceremoniously as Jupiter appears (in the Dunciad*) to have done. Be this as it may, as

"the life to come, in every writer's creed,"

is not one to which I can aspire, I have no right to obtrude myself on generations yet to

come.

Again, shall I inscribe, or devote, this volume TO THE MEMORY OF MY WRITINGS PAST? Their memory! There is no such shadow in existence. Those writings and their scribbler are long and utterly forgotten. Periere ruina: you might as well rummage for the site of Babylon, or vestiges of Troy. Memory !-The world has as bad a

memory as I have myself.

* Book ii.

+ See stanzas, headed "CADUCA," at the end of this volume. The above comparison, in the text, however, is unapt. I not only could never

"build the lofty rhyme,"

but have at no time constructed prose, of an elevation, of which Babylon or Ilium could be offered as a type. Even with a village, (though it were not Auburn,) my literary cottages, neither prosaic nor poetic, could compete.

Shall I then make to THUS ET ODORES, * my complimental bow? Nay, these, in their last moments, my poor pages will be embracing; and when I have perished, from just neglect, I shall have to be, by them, embalmed. But, in the mean time (fatebor enim) I have not a spice of attachment, wherewith to requite their warmth; and will not make to their pungencies, or aromaships, an anathema of my little volume.†

What, then, remains ?

Shall I dedicate to my

readers?

Peream male, si non

Optimum !

and here, closing my name-sake search for patrons, I accordingly will do it.

*Horace, Ep. lib. 11. Ep. 1. 1. 269.

† Avalnua, not avalsua: for I mean an offering; not a

curse.