᾽Αλλ᾽ ἐκεῖνο ἀναγράφω, ὅτι ἐμοὶ πατρίς τἐ, καὶ γένος, καὶ ἀρχαι, οἵδε οἱ λὁγοι εἰσι τέ—καὶ ἐπὶ τῶ δἐ οὐκ ἀπαξιῶ ἐμαυτὸν τῶν πρώτων ἐν τῇ φωνῇ τῇ Αγγλὶκῇ, εἴπερ οῦν καὶ Δανιὴλ ὅ ἰατρὸς ἐμος τῶν έν τοῖς φαρμακοις. INTERCHAPTER XIII. A PEEP FROM BEHIND THE CURTAIN. Ha, ha, ha, now ye will make me to smile, To see if I can all men beguile. Ha, my name, my name would ye so fain know? Yea, I wis, shall ye, and that with all speed. I have forgot it, therefore I cannot show. A, a, now I have it! I have it indeed! My name is Ambidexter, I signify one That with both hands finely can play. KING CAMBYSES. But the question has been mooted in the literary and cerulean circles of the metropolis, whether this book be not the joint work of two or more authors. And this duality or plurality of persons in one authorship has been so confidently maintained, that if it were possible to yield upon such a point to any display of evidence and weight of authority, I must have been argued out of my own indivisible individuality. _Fort bien! Je le soutiens par la grande raison Qu'ainsi l'a fait des Dieux la puissance suprême; Et qu'il n'est pas en moi de pouvoir dire non, Et d'etre un autre que moi-même._[1] [Footnote 1: MOLIERE.] Sometimes I have been supposed to be the unknown Beaumont of some equally unknown Fletcher,—the moiety of a Siamese duplicate; or the third part of a Geryonite triplicity; the fourth of a quaternion of partners, or a fifth of a Smectymnuan association. Nay, I know not whether they have not cut me down to the dimensions of a tailor, and dwindled me into the ninth part of an author! Me to be thus served! me, who am an integral, to be thus split into fractions! me, a poor unit of humanity, to be treated like a polypus under the scissars of an experimental naturalist, or unnaturalist. The reasons assigned in support of this pluri-personal hypothesis are, first, the supposed discrepancy of humour and taste apparent in the different parts of the book. Oh men ignorant of humorology! more ignorant of psychology! and most ignorant of Pantagruelism! Secondly, the prodigal expenditure of mottoes and quotations, which they think could only have been supported by means of a pic-nic contribution. Oh men whose diligence is little, whose reading less, and whose sagacity least of all!