this is an imperial age, in which to say nothing of M. Ingelby, the Emperor of the Conjurors, we have seen no fewer than four new Emperors. He of Russia, who did not think the old title of Peter the Great good enough for him; he of France, for whom any name but that of Tyrant or Murderer is too good; he of Austria, who took up one imperial appellation to cover over the humiliating manner in which he laid another down; and he of Hayti, who if he be wise will order all public business to be carried on in the talkee-talkee tongue, and make it high treason for any person to speak or write French in his dominions. We also must dub our old Parliament imperial forsooth! that we may not be behindhand with the age. Then we have Imperial Dining Tables! Imperial Oil for nourishing the hair! Imperial Liquid for Boot Tops! Yea, and, by all the Cæsars deified and damnified, Imperial Blacking! For my part I love to go with the stream, so I will have an Imperial Dedication.

Behold it, Reader. Therein is mystery.

To

The Bhow Begume

KEDORA

NIABARMA.

accumulation.

To send a book like this into the world without a Preface would be as impossible as it is to appear at Court without a bag at the head and a sword at the tail; for as the perfection of dress must be shown at Court, so in this history should the perfection of histories be exhibited. The book must be omni genere absolutum; it must prove and exemplify the perfectibility of books: yea, with all imaginable respect for the "Delicate Investigation," which I leave in undisputed possession of an appellation so exquisitely appropriate, I conceive that the title of THE BOOK, as a popular designation kar oxir, should be transferred from the edifying report of that Inquiry, to the present unique, unrivalled, and unrivalable production ;- -a production the like whereof hath not been, is not, and will not be. Here however let me warn my Greek and Arabian translators how they render the word, that if they offend the Mufti or the Patriarch, the offence as well as the danger may be theirs I wash my hands of both. I write in plain English, innocently and in the simplicity of my heart: what may be made of it in heathen languages concerns not me.

CHAPTER I. A. I.

NO BOOK CAN BE COMPLETE WITHOUT A

PREFACE.

I see no cause but men may pick their teeth,
Though Brutus with a sword did kill himself.

TAYLOR, THE WATER POET.

ANTE-PREFACE.

I here present thee with a hive of bees, laden some with wax, and some with honey. Fear not to approach! There are no Wasps, there are no Hornets here. If some wanton Bee should chance to buzz about thine ears, stand thy ground and hold thy hands: there's none will sting thee if thou strike not first. If any do, she hath honey in her bag will cure thee too. QUARLES.

"PREFACES," said Charles Blount, Gent., who committed suicide because the law would not allow him to marry his brother's widow,— (a law, be it remarked in passing, which is not sanctioned by reason, and which, instead of being in conformity with scripture, is in direct opposition to it, being in fact the mere device of a corrupt and greedy church)

and unhappy man, ever were, and still are but of two sorts, let other modes and fashions vary as they please. Let the pro

fane long peruke succeed the godly cropt hair; the cravat, the ruff; presbytery, popery; and popery presbytery again, yet still the author keeps to his old and wonted method of prefacing; when at the beginning of his book he enters, either with a halter about his neck, submitting himself to his reader's mercy whether he shall be hanged, or no; or else in a huffing manner he appears with the halter in his hand, and threatens to hang his reader, if he gives him not his good word. This, with the excitement of some friends to his undertaking, and some few apologies for want of time, books, and the like, are the constant and usual shams of all scribblers as well ancient as modern." This was not true then, nor is it now; but when he proceeds to say, "for my part I enter the lists upon another score," so say I with him; and my Preface shall say the

rest.

PREFAC E.

Oh for a quill pluck'd from a Seraph's wing!

YOUNG.

So the Poet exclaimed; and his exclamation may be quoted as one example more of the vanity of human wishes; for, in order to get a Seraph's quill it would be necessary, according to Mrs. Glasse's excellent item in her directions for roasting a hare, to begin by catching a Seraph. A quill from a Seraph's wing is, I confess, above my ambition; but one from a Peacock's tail was within my reach; and be it known unto all people, nations and languages, that with a Peacock's quill this Preface hath been penned-literally-truly, and bona-fidely speaking. And this is to write, as the learned old Pasquier says, pavonesquement, which in Latin minted for the nonce may be rendered pavonicè, and in English peacockically or peacockishly, whichever the reader may like best. That such a pen has verily and indeed been used upon this occasion I affirm. I affirm it upon the word of a true man; and here is a Captain of his Majesty's Navy at my elbow, who himself made the pen, and

who, if evidence were required to the fact, would attest it by as round an oath as ever rolled over a right English tongue. Nor will the time easily escape his remembrance, the bells being at this moment ringing, June 4. 1814, to celebrate the King's birth-day, and the public notification that peace has been concluded with France.

I have oftentimes had the happiness of seeing due commendation bestowed by gentle critics, unknown admirers and partial friends upon my pen, which has been married to all amiable epithets:-classical, fine, powerful, tender, touching, pathetic, strong, fanciful, daring, elegant, sublime, beautiful. I have read these epithets with that proper satisfaction which, when thus applied, they could not fail to impart, and sometimes qualified the pride which they inspired by looking at the faithful old tool of the Muses beside me, worn to the stump in their service: the one end mended up to the quick in that spirit of economy which becomes a son of the Lackland family, and shortened at the other by the gradual and alternate processes of burning and biting, till a scant inch only is left above the finger place. Philemon Holland was but a type of me in this respect. Indeed I may be allowed to say that I have improved upon his practice, or at least that I get more out of a pen than he did, for in the engraved title-page to his Cyrupædia, where there appears the Portrait of the Interpres marked by a great D inclosing the Greek letter (which I presume designates Doctor Philemon) ætatis suæ 80. A°. 1632, it may be plainly seen that he used his pen only at one end. Peradventure he delighted not, as I do, in the mitigated ammoniac odour.

But thou, O gentle reader, who in the exercise of thy sound judgment and natural benignity wilt praise this Preface, thou mayest with perfect propriety bestow the richest epithets upon the pen wherewith its immortal words were first clothed in material forms. Beautiful, elegant, fine, splendid, fanciful, will be to the very letter of truth: versatile it is as the wildest wit; flexible as the most monkey-like talent; and shouldst

thou call it tender, I will whisper in thine ear-that it is only too soft. Yet softness may be suitable; for of my numerous readers one half will probably be soft by sex, and of the other half a very considerable proportion soft by nature. Soft therefore be the Pen and soft the strain.

I have drawn up the window-blinds (though sunshine at this time acts like snuff upon the mucous membrane of my nose) in order that the light may fall upon this excellent Poet's wand as I wave it to and fro, making cuts five and six of the broad-sword exercise. Every feather of its fringe is now lit up by the sun; the hues of green and gold and amethyst are all brought forth; and that predominant lustre which can only be likened to some rich metallic oxyd; and that spot of deepest purple, the pupil of an eye for whose glorious hue neither metals nor flowers nor precious stones afford a resemblance: its likeness is only to be found in animated life, in birds and insects whom nature seems to have formed when she was most prodigal of beauty*: I have seen it indeed upon the sea, but it has been in some quiet bay when the reflection of the land combined with the sky and the ocean to produce it.

And what can be more emblematic of the work which I am beginning than the splendid instrument wherewith the Preface is traced? What could more happily typify the combination of parts, each perfect in itself when separately considered, yet all connected into one harmonious whole; the story running through like the stem or back-bone, which the episodes and digressions fringe like so many featherlets, leading up to that catastrophe, the gem or eye-star, for which the whole was formed, and in which all terminate. They who are versed in the doctrine of sympathies and the arcana of correspondences as revealed to the Swedish Emanuel, will doubtless admire the instinct or inspiration which directed my choice to the pavonian Pen. The example should be followed by all consumers of ink and quill. Then would the lover borrow a feather from the

"Framed in the prodigality of nature.”

turtle dove. The lawyer would have a large assortment of kite, hawk, buzzard and vulture: his clients may use pigeon or gull. Poets according to their varieties. Mr. the Tom Tit. Mr. the Water-wagtail. Mr. the Crow. Mr. Mocking-bird. Mr. the Sky-lark. Mr.

Mr.

Swan.

the

the Magpie. Mr. the Eagle.

the Swan. Lord -, the Black

Critics some the Owl, others the Butcher Bird. Your challenger must indite with one from the wing of a game cock: he who takes advantage of a privileged situation to offer the wrong and shrink from the atonement will find a white feather. Your dealers in public and private scandal, whether Jacobins or Anti-Jacobins, the pimps and panders of a profligate press, should use none but duck feathers, and those of the dirtiest that can be found in the purlieus of Pimlico or St. George's Fields. But for the Editor of the Edinburgh Review, whether he dictates in morals or in taste, or displays his peculiar talent in political prophecy, he must continue to use goose quills. Stick to the goose, Mr. Jeffrey; while you live, stick to the Goose!

INITIAL CHAPTER.

Ἐξ οὗ δὴ τὰ πρῶτα. — HOMER. THEY who remember the year 1800 will remember also the great controversy whether it was the beginning of a century, or the end of one; a controversy in which all Magazines, all Newspapers, and all persons took part. Now as it has been deemed expedient to divide this work, or to speak more emphatically this Opus, or more emphatically still this Ergon, into Chapters Ante-Initial and Post-Initial, a dispute of the same nature might arise among the commentators in after ages, if especial care were not now taken to mark distinctly the beginning. This therefore, is the Initial Chapter, neither Ante nor Post, but standing between both; the point of initiation, the goal of the Antes, the starting place of the Posts; the mark at which the former end their career, and from whence the latter take their departure.

the middle of things. Yet the Giant Moulineau's appeal to his friend the story-telling Ram may well be remembered here; Belier, mon ami, si tu voulois commencer par le com

disallow thee to be a competent judge.

in the few lines of the preceding chapter how much is there that requires explanation ?· Who was Nobs? - Who was Barnaby?— Who was the Doctor? Who was Mrs. Dove? The place, where? The time, when? - The persons, who? —

I maie not tell you all at once;
But as I maie and can, I shall
By order tellen you it all.

So saith Chaucer; and in the same mind, facilius discimus quæ congruo dicuntur ordine quam quæ sparsim et confusim, saith Erasmus. Think a moment I beseech thee, Reader, what order is! Not the mere word which is so often vociferated in the House of Commons or uttered by the Speaker ore rotundo, when it is necessary for him to assume the tone of Ζεὺς ὑψιβρεμέτης; but order in its essence and truth, in itself and in its derivatives.

Waving the Orders in Council, and the Order of the Day, a phrase so familiar in the disorderly days of the French National Convention, think, gentle Reader, of the order of Knighthood, of Holy Orders, of the orders of architecture, the Linnæan orders, the orderly Serjeant, the ordinal numbers, the Ordinary of Newgate, the Ordinary on Sundays at 2 o'clock in the environs of the Metropolis, the ordinary faces of those who partake of what is ordinarily provided for them there;

and under the auspices of Government itself, and par excellence the Extraordinary Gazette. And as the value of health is never

truly and feelingly understood except in sickness, contemplate for a moment what the

CHAPTER III. P. I.

WHOLESOME OBSERVATIONS UPON THE

VANITY OF FAME.

Whosoever shall address himself to write of matters of

remote, and then as it approaches thee. In the country wherein thou livest, bad; in the town whereof thou art an inhabitant, worse; in thine own street, worser; in thine own house, worst of all. Think of it in thy family, in thy fortune, in thine intestines. In thy affairs, distressing; in thy members, painful; in thy conduct, ruinous. Order is the sanity of the mind, the health of the body, the peace of the city, the security of the state. As the beams to a house, as the bones to the microcosm of man, so is order to all things. Abstract it from a Dictionary, and thou mayest imagine the inextricable confusion which would ensue. Reject it from the Alphabet, and Zerah Colburne himself could not go through the chriscross How then should I do without it in this history?

row.

A Quaker, by name Benjamin Lay, (who was a little cracked in the head though sound at heart,) took one of his compositions once to Benjamin Franklin that it might be printed and published. Franklin, having looked over the manuscript, observed that it was deficient in arrangement; it is no matter, replied the author, print any part thou pleasest first. Many are the speeches and the sermons and the treatises and the poems and the volumes which are like Benjamin Lay's book; the head might serve for the tail, and the tail for the body, and the body for the head, either end for the middle, and the middle for either end; --- nay, if you could turn them inside out like a polypus, or a glove, they would be no worse for the operation.

When the excellent Hooker was on his death-bed, he expressed his joy at the prospect of entering a World of Order.

behoveth that before he enter thereinto, he should resolutely determine with himself in what order he will handle the same; so shall he best accomplish that he hath undertaken, and inform the understanding, and help the memory of the Reader. GWILLIM'S DISPLAY OF HERALDRY.

WHO was the Doctor?

We will begin with the persons for sundry reasons, general and specific. Doth not the Latin grammar teach us so to do, wherein the personal verbs come before the impersonal, and the Propria quæ maribus precede all other nouns? Moreover by replying to this question all needful explanation as to time and place will naturally and of necessity follow in due sequence.

Truly I will deliver and discourse
The sum of all. *

Who was the Doctor?

Can it then be necessary to ask? — Alas the vanity of human fame! Vanity of vanities, all is Vanity! "How few," says Bishop Jeremy Taylor, "have heard of the name of Veneatapadino Ragium! He imagined that that there was no man in the world that knew him not: how many men can tell me that he was the King of Narsinga?" When I mention Arba, who but the practised textualist can call to mind that he was "a great man among the Anakim," that he was the father of Anak, and that from him Kirjath-Arba took its name? A great man among the Giants of the earth, the founder of a city, the father of Anak!- and now there remaineth nothing more of him or his race than the bare mention of them in one of the verses of one of the chapters of the Book of Joshua: except for that only record it would not now be known that Arba had ever lived, or that Hebron was originally called after his name. Vanitas vanitatum! Omnia vanitas. An old woman in a village in the West of England was told one day

* G. PEELE.