As I ran through the leaves of my poor little book to take a fond author’s first tremulous look, it was quite an excitement to hunt the _errata_, sprawled in as birds’ tracks are in some kinds of strata (only these made things crookeder). Fancy an heir that a father had seen born well-featured and fair, turning suddenly wry-nosed, club-footed, squint-eyed, hair-lipped, wapper-jawed, carrot-haired, from a pride become an aversion,--my case was yet worse. A club-foot (by way of a change) in a verse, I might have forgiven, an _o’s_ being wry, a limp in an _e_, or a cock in an _i_,--but to have the sweet babe served in _pi_! I am not queasy-stomached, but such a Thyestean banquet as that was quite out of the question. In the edition now issued, no pains are neglected, and my verses, as orators say, stand corrected. Yet some blunders remain of the Public’s own make, which I wish to correct for my personal sake. For instance, a character drawn in pure fun and condensing the traits of a dozen in one, has been, as I hear, by some persons applied to a good friend of mine, whom to stab in the side, as we walked along chatting and joking together, would not be _my_ way. I can hardly tell whether a question will ever arise in which he and I should by any strange fortune agree but meanwhile, my esteem for him grows as I know him, and, though not the best judge on earth of a poem, he knows what it is he is saying and why, and is honest and fearless, two good points which I have not found so rife I can easily smother my love for them, whether on my side or t’ other. From my other _anonymi_, you may be sure that I know what is meant by a caricature, and what by a portrait. There _are_ those who think it is capital fun to be spattering their ink on quiet, unquarrelsome folk, but the minute the game changes sides and the others begin it, they see something savage and horrible in it. As for me I respect neither women nor men for their gender, nor own any sex in a pen. I choose just to hint to some causeless unfriends that, as far as I know, there are always two ends (and one of them heaviest, too) to a staff, and two parties also to every good laugh. [Illustration] [Illustration] A FABLE FOR CRITICS