“Whoever he be,” says Father O'Faggot, “he is an audacious heretic.” “A schoolmaster, by his learning,” says Dr. Fullbottom Wigsby. The Bishop would take him for a Divine, if there were not sometimes a degree of levity in the book, which though always innocent, is not altogether consistent with the gown. Sir Fingerfee Dolittle discovers evident marks of the medical profession. “He has manifestly been a traveller” says the General, “and lived in the World.” The man of letters says it would not surprize him if it were the work of a learned Jew. Mr. Dullman sees nothing in the book to excite the smallest curiosity; he really does not understand it, and doubts whether the Author himself knew what he would be at. Mr. M^cDry declares, with a harsh Scotch accent, “Its just parfit nonsense.” INTERCHAPTER VIII. A LEAF OUT OF THE NEW ALMANACK. THE AUTHOR THINKS CONSIDERATELY OF HIS COMMENTATORS; RUMINATES; RELATES AN ANECDOTE OF SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE; QUOTES SOME PYRAMIDAL STANZAS, WHICH ARE NOT THE WORSE FOR THEIR ARCHITECTURE, AND DELIVERS AN OPINION CONCERNING BURNS. To smell to a turf of fresh earth is wholesome for the body; no less are thoughts of mortality cordial to the Soul. “_Earth thou art, to earth thou shalt return._” FULLER. The Commentators in the next millennium, and even in the next century, will I foresee, have no little difficulty, in settling the chronology of this opus. I do not mean the time of its conception, the very day and hour of that happy event having been recorded in the seventh chapter, A. I.: nor the time of its birth, that, as has been registered in the weekly Literary Journals, having been in the second week of January, 1834. But at what intervening times certain of its Chapters and Inter Chapters were composed. A similar difficulty has been found with the Psalms, the Odes of Horace, Shakespeare's Plays, and other writings sacred or profane, of such celebrity as to make the critical enquiry an object of reasonable curiosity, or of real moment. They however who peruse the present volume while it is yet a new book, will at once have perceived that between the composition of the preceding Chapter and their perusal thereof, an interval as long as one of Nourjahad's judicial visitations of sleep must have elapsed. For many of the great performers who figured upon the theatre of public life when the anticipations in that Chapter were expressed, have made their exits; and others who are not there mentioned, have since that time made their entrances. The children of that day have reached their stage of adolescence; the youth are now in mid life; the middle-aged have grown old, and the old have passed away. I say nothing of the political changes that have intervened. Who can bestow a thought upon the pantomime of politics, when his mind is fixed upon the tragedy of human life?