we have all our life been a hunter after oddities. We have studied attentively the past. For the future we have been moderately solicitous; there being so many busy economists to take the unthankful task off our hands. We have lost our friend rather than our joke, when the joke has been the better of the two; and have been free of discourse where it has been courteously received, preferring (in the cant of pompous ignorance, which is dear at any price!) to make ourselves “_cheap_” rather than be set down as exclusive and unkind. Disappointments we have had, and sorrows, with ample experience of the world's ingratitude. But life is too short to harbour enmities; and to be resentful is to be unhappy. This may have cast a transient shade over our lucubrations, which let thy happier humour shine upon and dispel! Wilt thou accept us for thy Cicerone through a journey of strange sights? the curiosities of nature, and the whimsicalities of art. We promise thee faster speed than steam-boat and railroad: for thou shalt traverse the ground of two centuries in two hours! With pleasant companions by the way, free from the perils of fire and flood, “Fancy, like the finger of a clock, Runs the great circuit, and is still at home.” CHAPTER I. |Dost thou think because thou art virtuous there shall be no more cakes and ale?” was the admirable reply of Sir Toby Belch to Malvolio when he would have marred his Christmas * merrymaking with Sir Andrew and the Clown. And how beautiful is Olivia's reply to the self-same precisian when the searching apophthegms of the “foolish wise man, or wise foolish man,” sounded like discords in his ears. “O, you are sick of selflove, Malvolio, and taste all with a distempered appetite. To be generous, guiltless, and of free disposition, is to take those things for bird-bolts that you deem cannon-bullets. There is no slander in an allowed fool, though he do nothing but rail; nor no railing in a known discreet man, though he do nothing but reprove.” * Christmas being the season when Jack Frost commonly takes us by the nose, the diversions are within doors, either in exercise, or by the fire-side. Viz. a game at blind-man's- buff, puss-in-the-corner, questions and commands, hoop-and- hide; stories of hobgoblins, Tom-pokers, bull-beggars, witches, wizards, conjurors, Doctor Faustus, Friar Bacon, Doctor Partridge, and such-like horrible bodies, that terrify and delight! “O you merry, merry souls, Christmas is a-coming: We shall have flowing bowls, Dancing, piping, drumming. Delicate minced pies, To feast every virgin; Capon and goose likewise, Brawn, and dish of sturgeon. We hate to be everlastingly bewailing the follies and vices of mankind; and gladly turn to the pleasanter side of the picture, to contemplate something that we can love and emulate. We know Then for Christmas-box,