And now, reader, these papers, which have been running on for a year or more, are wound up. I did not begin them intending to give you anything marvellous, or new, or profound about the aspect, prospects, and destiny, political, religious, or literary, of the great people among whom I am a small unit. I only intended to present you with some phases of outward life and manners--such things as would strike or interest a stranger in our beloved Gotham, and in the places to which regular Gothamites--American cockneys, so to speak--are wont to repair. For I am but a cockney in my own country; I have never travelled far in it,--good reason why, when they are apt to hang up a man at one end of the Union for what is a sort of religion at the other. They did not aspire to be "Sketches of American Society" (that was an honorary prefix of yours, Mr. Editor), nor even Sketches of New-York Society, but only of a very small class of persons in New-York; and therefore I had originally headed them "The Upper Ten Thousand," in accordance with a phrase established by Mr. Willis, though even that is an exaggeration, for the people so designated are hardly as many hundred. In truth, I began the series chiefly to amuse some Cantab friends of mine, who were curious to know how the gentlemen that were their contemporaries and representatives in our Atlantic cities, lived, and eat, and dressed, and amused themselves; what their habits and pursuits and propensities were. The last thing that I expected was that any of them should be read, much less republished, on my side the water. To a New-Yorker, many things which they contain must necessarily appear stale, stupid, and commonplace. For instance, in one number half a page is taken up with the description of a trotting-wagon; to an American I should as soon think of describing a pair of boots; the one is as familiar an object to him as the other. But at the very first number, some clever folks took it into their heads that they were to be very personal,--that every character described or even alluded to in them was to represent a real living prototype; that was enough to make them sought after. And it really did happen that in that first number I had described a sleigh which actually existed in real wood and iron somewhere about the city; and the inference above detailed was obvious. It is not every story in Gotham that has so much foundation; in fact, they get them up frequently without any foundation to speak of, only unfortunately the narratives don't fall to the ground as readily as the houses do. It is hardly worth while contradicting such idle rumors, but to my American readers (since I have some, much to my own amazement) I wish to say one thing once for all--that Harry Benson is not meant to represent any living individual whatsoever, and that his wife, house, horses, and other accessaries, are not designed after the corresponding appurtenances of any real person.