Produced by David Widger from page images generously provided by the Internet Archive RAB AND HIS FRIENDS AND OTHER PAPERS By John Brown, M.D., F.R.S.E. "_Ce fagotage de tant si diverses pièces, se faict en cette condition: que je n'y mets la main, que lors qu'une trop lasche oysisvetê vie presse_--michel de Montaigne. Artist's Edition. With Numerous New Illustrations By Jessie Shepherd And William A. Mccullough New York Frederick A. Stokes Company Publishers 1903 [Illustration: 0008] [Illustration: 0008] "The treatment of the illustrious dead by the quick, often reminds me of the gravedigger in Hamlet, and the skull of poor defunct Yorick."--w.h.b. "Multi ad sapientiam pervenire potuissent, nisi se jam pervenisse putassent." "There's nothing so amusing as human nature, but then you must have some one to laugh with."--C. S. B. "Fear is more pain than is the pain it fears."--Sir P. Sidney. $PREFACE. "Squeeze out the whey," was the pithy and sharp advice of his crusty, acute, faithful, and ill-fated friend, William Taylor of Norwich, author of English Synonyms, to Southey, when that complacent and indefatigable poet and literary man of all work sent him the MSS. of his huge quartos. It would perhaps have been better for his fame had the author of _Thalaba, Don Roderick, and The Curse of Kehama_ taken the gruff advice. I am going to squeeze my two volumes into one, keeping it a profound secret as to what I regard as whey and what curd; only I believe the more professional papers, as _Locke and Sydenham, Dr. Marshall,_ etc., are less readable--less likely to while away the idle hours of the gentle public, than those now given: they are squeezed out not without a grudge. My energetic friend, J. T. Fields, of the well-known Boston firm, has done the same act of excision by the two volumes that I now do,--and has done it admirably. Only I could not but smile when I saw _Horo Subsecivo_ exchanged for "Spare Hours,"--a good title, but not mine; and my smile broke into laughter when I found myself dedicated "affectionately" to an excellent man and poet, whom, to my sorrow, I do not know. While thanking my American friends, and shaking hands with them across the great deep, I cannot deny myself the satisfaction of acknowledging the following portion of a letter received a day or two ago from an unknown friend--Charles D. Warner, of Hartford, Conn., U.S.:-- "I see you lay some stress upon the fact that your venerated father was very tenacious of purpose, and that _that_ is a trait of the Browns. The branch of the family in this country also assert the same of themselves. "In further reading how your father came, late in life, when it was too late, to know that he had neglected his body, I called to mind a remark of another Dr. Brown, which I thought you might like to hear, as confirmatory of your theory of the _unity_ of the Browns.