I wish all manner of success and prosperity to the members of the Club, my affectionate coadjutors. Mr. Sterling, I have no doubt, will make an exemplary Vicar, and Mr. Lozell will do excellent well to say his “Amen.” Mr. Musgrave will be a capital whip, unless he breaks his neck in the training; and Sir Francis Wentworth will probably rise to great honours and emoluments--when the Whigs come in. Golightly will die with a jest in his mouth, and a glass in his hand. Bellamy will live with elegance in his manners, and love in his eye. Oakley will be a spiteful critic; and Swinburne an erudite commentator. As for Gerard, he will go forward on his own path to eminence, destined to shine in a nobler arena than that of a schoolboy’s periodical, and to enjoy more worthy applauses than those of Peregrine Courtenay. And I, my dear public, shall walk up the hill of life as steadily as I can, and as prosperously as I may. For the present I have wiped my pen, and given a holiday to the devils; but if, at any future period, I should, in my bounty, give to your inspection a political pamphlet, or a treatise on law, a farce or a tragedy, a speech or a sermon, I trust that you will have a respect for the name of Peregrine Courtenay, and be as ready with your pounds, shillings, and pence, as I have always hitherto found you. One word more. I have been much solicited to have my own effigies stuck in the front of my work, done in an editorial attitude, with a writing-desk before me, and a pen behind my ear; and I am aware that this is the custom of many gentlemen whom I might be proud to imitate. Mr. Canning figures in front of the _Microcosm_, and Dr. Peter Morris presents his goodly physiognomy in the vanguard of “Peter’s Letters.” And I know, what has often before been remarked, that when the public sit down to the perusal of a work, it imports them much to be convinced whether the writer thereof be plump or spare, fair or dark, of an open or a meditative countenance. Would any one feel an interest in the fate of Tom Thumb, who did not see a representation of the hero courting inspection, and claiming, as it were, _in propriâ personâ_, the applause to which his exploits entitle him? Would any one shudder with horror at the perilous adventures of Munchausen, who could not count the scars with which they are engraven on the Baron’s physiognomy? In opposition to these weighty considerations, I have two motives which forcibly impel me to adopt a contrary line of conduct. In the first place, I am, as is known to all my acquaintance, most outrageously modest. I have been so from my cradle. Before I ever entered upon a public capacity, a few copies of a caricature came down to our Eton bookseller, one of which contained a figure of a starved poet. One of my friends carelessly discovered a resemblance between the said starved poet and your humble servant, the consequence of which was that your humble servant bought