The above are the principal alterations, concerning which I should be so glad to be favoured with the opinions of able reviewers, to the increasing of my information, perhaps also of my reputation. But, as there could not be a more troublesome business than the comparing of the old book with the improved one, page by page, as it were, I have deposited in the school-book shop the printed copy of the old edition, in which all the writing-ink emendations of the printing-ink, that is to say, all the places which have been written or stroked through, can be easily seen at a glance, often half and whole pages done to death, so that it would really astonish you. Critics not on the spot must, indeed, content themselves with laying the volumes of each of the editions into the opposite scales of a grocer's balance, and then looking, when they will see how much the new edition outweighs the old. From my strict and anxious treatment of my Second Edition, then, all critics may form an idea of my strict and anxious treatment of my first; they may also form an idea how much I struck out of my manuscript before printing, when they observe how much I have struck out after printing. Dr. Jean Paul Fr. Richter. Bayreuth, _September_, 1817. CONTENTS. PREFACE to the Second Edition PREFACE, with which I was obliged to put Jacob Oehrmann, General Dealer, to sleep, because I wished to narrate the "Dog Post Days," and these present "Flower-Pieces," &c., &c., to his Daughter Wedded Life, Death, And Marriage of F. S. Siebenkæs. A Genuine Thorn Piece. BOOK I. CHAPTER I. A Wedding Day, succeeding a day of respite--The Counterparts--Dish Quintette in two Courses--Table-talk--Six Arms and Hands. CHAPTER II. Home Fun--Sundry formal Calls--The Newspaper Article--A Love Quarrel, and a few hard words--Antipathetic ink on the wall-- Friendship of the Satirists--Government of Kuhschnappel. APPENDIX to CHAPTER II. Government of the Imperial Market Borough of Kuhschnappel. CHAPTER III. Lenette's Honeymoon--Book Brewing--Schulrath Stiefel--Mr. Everard--A Day before the Fair--The Red Cow--St. Michael's Fair-- The Beggars' Opera--Diabolical Temptation in the Wilderness, or the Mannikin of Fashion--Autumn Joys--A New Labyrinth. CHAPTER IV. A Matrimonial Partie à la Guerre--Letter to that Hair Collector, the Venner--Self-deceptions--Adam's Marriage Sermon--Shadowing and Over-shadowing. End of the Preface and of the First Book. * * * * * PREFACE to the Second, Third and Fourth Books. PREFACE by the Author of 'Hesperus'. BOOK II.