so that, in general, the very reverse of “laudatur et alget" is its destiny.

Ambition, however, must run some risks, and I shall be very well satisfied if the reception of these few Letters should have the effect of sending me to the Post-Bag for more.

PREFACE

TO THE FOURTEENTH EDITION.

BY A FRIEND OF THE AUTHOR.

on a tour through

In the absence of Mr. BROWN, who is at present I feel myself called upon, as his friend, to notice certain misconceptions and misrepresentations, to which this little volume of Trifles has given rise.

In the first place, it is not true that Mr. BROWN has had any accomplices in the work. A note, indeed, which has hitherto accompanied his Preface, may very naturally have been the origin of such a supposition; but that note, which was merely the coquetry of an author, I have, in the present edition, taken upon myself to remove, and Mr. BROWN must therefore be considered (like the mother of that unique production, the Centaur,

μova nas povov *) as alone responsible for the whole contents of the volume.

In the next place it has been said, that in consequence of this graceless little book, a certain distinguished Personage prevailed upon another distinguished Personage to withdraw from the author that notice and kindness, with which he had so long and so liberally honoured him. There is not one syllable of truth in this story. For the magnanimity of the former of these persons I would, indeed, in no case answer too rashly; but of the conduct of the latter towards my friend, I have a proud gratification in declaring, that it has never ceased to be such as he must remember with indelible gratitude;-a gratitude the more cheerfully and warmly paid, from its not being a debt incurred solely on his own account, but for kindness shared with those nearest and dearest to him.

To the charge of being an Irishman, poor Mr. BROWN pleads guilty; and I believe it must

* Pindar, Pyth. 2.- My friend certainly cannot add ουτ' εν ανδρασι γεράσφορον.

also be acknowledged that he comes of a Roman Catholic family: an avowal which, I am aware, is decisive of his utter reprobation in the eyes of those exclusive patentees of Christianity, so worthy to have been the followers of a certain enlightened Bishop, DONATUS, who held "that God is in Africa, and not elsewhere." But from all this it does not necessarily follow that Mr. BROWN is a Papist; and, indeed, I have the strongest reasons for suspecting that they who say so are totally mistaken. Not that I presume to have ascertained his opinions upon such subjects; all I know of his orthodoxy is, that he has a Protestant wife and two or three little Protestant children, and that he has been seen at church every Sunday, for a whole year together, listening to the sermons of his truly reverend and amiable friend, Dr. --and behaving there as well and as orderly as most people.

There are a few more mistakes and falsehoods about Mr. BROWN, to which I had intended, with

* Bishop of Case Nigræ, in the fourth century.

all becoming gravity, to advert; but I begin to think the task is altogether as useless as it is tiresome. Calumnies and misrepresentations of this sort are, like the arguments and statements of Dr. Duigenan, not at all the less vivacious or less serviceable to their fabricators for having been refuted and disproved a thousand times over : they are brought forward again, as good as new, whenever malice or stupidity is in want of them, and are as useful as the old broken lantern, in Fielding's Amelia, which the watchman always keeps ready by him, to produce, in proof of riot, against his victims. I shall therefore give up the fruitless toil of vindication, and would even draw my pen over what I have already written, had I not promised to furnish the Publisher with a Preface, and know not how else I could contrive to eke it out.

I have added two or three more trifles to this edition, which I found in the Morning Chronicle, and knew to be from the pen of my friend. *

The TRIFLES here alluded to, and others, which have since appeared, will be found in Volume V. of this edition.Publisher.