“Give me credit, Sir, for a temper as imperturbably good as that which Lord Althorpe presents, like a sevenfold shield of lamb's wool, to cover him against all attacks, and I will not complain of the disparagement implied in your comparison.” “Your confounded good temper, Mr. Author, seems to pride itself upon trying experiments on the patience of your readers. Here I am in the middle of the third volume, and if any one asked me what the book is about, it would be impossible for me to answer the question. I have never been able to guess at the end of one chapter, what was likely to be the subject of the next.” “Let me reply to that observation, Sir, by an anecdote. A collector of scarce books was one day showing me his small but curious hoard; ‘Have you ever seen a copy of this book?’ he asked, with every rare volume that he put into my hands: and when my reply was that I had not, he always rejoined with a look and tone of triumphant delight, ‘I should have been exceedingly sorry if you had!’ “Let me tell you another anecdote, not less to the purpose. A thorough-bred fox-hunter found himself so much out of health a little before the season for his sport began, that he took what was then thought a long journey to consult a physician, and get some advice which he hoped would put him into a condition for taking the field. Upon his return his friends asked him what the Doctor had said. ‘Why,’ said the Squire, ‘he told me that I've got a dyspepsy:—I don't know what that is: but it's some damn'd thing or other I suppose!’—My good Sir, however much at a loss you may be to guess what is coming in the next chapter, you can have no apprehension that it may turn out anything like what he, with too much reason, supposed a dyspepsy to be. “_Lecteur, mon ami_, I have given you the advantage of a motto from Sophocles, and were it as apposite to me, as it seems applicable when coming from you, I might content myself with replying to it in a couplet of the honest old wine-bibbing, Water-poet:— That man may well be called an idle mome That mocks the Cock because he wears a comb. But no one who knows a hawk from a hernshaw, or a sheep's head from a carrot, or the Lord Chancellor Brougham in his wig and robes, from a Guy Vaux on the fifth of November, can be so mistaken in judgment as to say that I make use of many words in making nothing understood; nor as to think me, ἄνθρωπον ἀγριοποἰον, αὐθαδόστομον, ἔχοντ᾽ ἀχαλινον, ἀκρατὲς, ἀπύλωτον στόμὰ, ἀπεριλάλητον, κομποφακελοῤῥήμονα.[3] [Footnote 3: ARISTOPHANES.]