I find myself in a dilemma. My modesty (?) is at variance with my love of verity. Oh, the inconvenience of that little pronoun, I! Would that I had in the first instance imitated the wily conduct of the bald-pated invader of Britain. How complacently might I not then have vaunted in the beginning, have caracoled through the middle, and glorified myself at the conclusion of this my autobiography! What a monstrous piece of braggadocio would not Caesar's Commentaries have been, had he used the first instead of the third person singular! How intolerable would have been the presumption of his Thrasonical, "I thrashed the Helvetians--I subjugated the Germans--I utterly routed the Gauls--I defeated the painted Britons!" And, on the contrary--for I like to place heroes side by side--how decorously and ingeniously might I not have written, "Ralph Rattlin blackened Master Simpkin's left eye--Ralph Rattlin led on the attack upon Farmer Russel's orchard, and Ralph Rattlin fought three rounds, with no considerable disadvantage, with the long-legged pieman." Alas! I cannot even shelter myself under the mistiness of the peremptory _we_. I have made a great mistake. But I have this consolation, in common with other great men, that, for our mistake, the public will assuredly suffer more than ourselves. Many a choice adventure, of which I was the hero, must be suppressed. _I_ should blush myself black in the face to say what _he_ would relate with a very quiet smile of self-satisfaction. However, as regrets are quite unavailing, unless, like the undertaker's, they are paid for, I shall exclaim, with the French soldier, who found his long military queue in the hands of a pursuing English sailor, "Chivalry of the world, _toujours en avant_!" I now began to commit the sin of much verse, and, consequently, acquired in the neighbouring village much notice. No chastising blow, or even word of reproof fell upon me. My mind was fed upon praise, and my heart nourished with caresses. In the school I had no equal, and my vanity whispered that such was the case without. However, this vanity I did not show, for I was humble from excessive pride.