There appears to be something pedantical in criticising a popular proverb--something vexatious in calling in question the sort of ancestral wisdom it is supposed to contain--in disputing a truth, which has been formalised and accepted by the general assent and perpetual iteration, at all hours of the day, by all sorts of talkers. Besides, who knows not that a proverb is not a logical statement? It is always a one-sided view of the matter, so that the most opposite of proverbs may be equally true; it gains its currency, and its very force and pungency, by a bold exclusion at once of all that qualification, and exception, and limitation, which your exact thinkers require. We will not, therefore, enter into any profane or captious dispute of one of the most current of the whole family of proverbs, that which assigns so great a value to the _premier pas_, to the first step, in any enterprise or career of life, so that this once accomplished, all the rest is easy, all the rest is done, _ce n'est que le premier pas qui conte_. We will not criticise, nor qualify, nor except; only this we _will_ say, that many a first step has been made that led nowhere,--to nothing; that a multitude of professional and other aspirants would allow, if they reflected on it a moment, that they had, all their lives long, at certain intervals, been making first steps, and never made any other. More glory, doubtless, is due to them for having overcome so many successive difficulties. Whilst, on the other hand, many who have advanced to eminence in their chosen career, would find it hard to distinguish, in that gradual progress which toil and talent had together commanded, any one first step, or stride, which set them going on their prosperous path, any step a jot more extraordinary than the rest, or that did more towards the completion of the journey than the first step one makes in walking from Edinburgh to Leith. They would have as much difficulty in describing the _premier pas_ which started them on the road to fortune, as many a good Christian, well brought up from youth to manhood, would feel if called upon to answer a Whitfield or a Wesley, as to the precise day and hour of his conversion. The truth is, we apprehend, that in this popular proverb, two several matters are confused together under one name, thus giving to it a greater force than it should legitimately possess; the _premier pas_ not only signifies that first step one takes on any of the high roads which conduct to wealth or honours, but under the same title is also included, we suspect, those startling turns and tricks of fortune, on which no human wit can calculate, and which raise a man suddenly into some new and unexpected position in the world. All kinds of fortunate starting points are mingled together in one view, and under one title; an thus, the _first step_ becomes magnified into half the journey, as indeed it is sometimes the whole of it.