It will not perhaps be a very easy matter, at this period of the work, to recall the mind of the reader from fiction to reality, and to persuade him of the melancholy truth, that THE SEXAGENARIAN IS NOW NO MORE. The circumstances attending this event are of an interesting, almost even of an awful nature. To engage the attention more deeply in his narrative, and to relieve it of the egotism attached to self-biography, the Sexagenarian had adopted the third person instead of the first in many parts of the work. He had supposed that after his death a friend had discovered a number of scattered materials, from which these volumes were to be formed, and had so supplied the connecting links as to make the history complete. In adopting this plan, he was enabled to give the narrative many little lively turns, which the natural playfulness of his mind suggested. In this manner he had proceeded, sustaining the character of himself and his friend, within a few pages of the conclusion of his work, and had even corrected the press down to the present sheet. Little perhaps did he think how prophetic was his plan, and that on his own death-bed he should in reality entrust to a friend that office, which in fiction he had supposed to have been committed to his care. To present these Memoirs to the world, and explain the peculiar circumstances under which they are published, was the dying request of the Sexagenarian to one who knew and who valued his worth. He had scarcely entered upon his sixtieth year, and had just entitled himself to the appellation which in his work he had assumed, when he was suddenly called from an existence of much bodily pain and suffering. His life had been chequered by various events both of a prosperous and of an adverse nature. In the paths of literature his exertions had been attended with the most gratifying success. He had moved in the first circles of life; he had been fostered by the great, and rewarded by the good. No man, perhaps, of his age, possessed larger or more varied resources of curious and entertaining scholarship. In literary anecdote, he was rich and fertile; in neat and appropriate citations, he was unrivalled. His conversation was easy, elegant, and communicative; and no scholar could leave his company without an addition to his stock of knowledge. As a friend, he was respected and beloved; among his acquaintance, indeed, his good-humour was almost proverbial. His open and generous nature was too often a dupe to the treacherous, and a prey to the designing. His latter days were spent in retirement from those busy scenes, in which he had formerly borne a conspicuous part. In the last two years of his life, he amused himself with the composition of the preceding Memoirs, which display an extensive knowledge of the events and the characters of a former day. Many of the personages there described, like the hand which records them, are now in the dust, and have left their name only and their memories behind.