Then would the lover borrow a feather from the 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 tomtit. Mr. the water wagtail. Mr. the mocking bird. Mr. skylark. Mr., the eagle. Mr.

the crow. Mr.

the magpie. Mr.

the the swan. Lord

the black swan. Critics, some the owl, others the butcher bird. Your challenger must endite 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!

4*

INITIAL CHAPTER.

Ἐξ δυ 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 SUBJECT OF THIS HISTORY AT HOME AND AT TEA.

If thou be a severe sour-complexioned man, then I here disallow thee to be a competent judge.-IZAAK WALTON.

THE clock of St. George's had struck five. Mrs. Dove had just poured out the doctor's seventh cup of tea. The doctor was sitting in his armchair. Sir Thomas was purring upon his knees; and Pompey stood looking up to his mistress, wagging his tail, sometimes whining with a short note of impatience, and sometimes gently putting his paw against her apron to remind her that he wished for another bit of bread and butter. Barnaby was gone to the farm, and Nobs was in the stable.