_"When I came to my chamber I writ down these minutes; but was at a loss what instruction I should propose to my readers from the enumeration of so many insignificant matters and occurrences; and I thought it of great use, if they could learn with me to keep their minds open to gratification, and ready to receive it from anything it meets with."_ --STEELE, _in "The Spectator," August 11, 1712_. INTRODUCTION Few volumes of short stories published a generation ago remain in print to-day and fewer still either merit or would repay reprinting. But the case is different with the two volumes published by Mr. Matthews in the early nineties under respectively the title and subtitle now given to their contents combined in one and made once more accessible to the reading public. Whatever may be said of the progress made by current literature in the interval, the public for it has augmented at least correspondingly with the census, and it is permitted to hope that the interest of this wider public in work of such exceptional authorship, subject and quality has similarly increased. Mr. Matthews has himself a wider public, amply earned, and I should say that interest in New York has probably increased in pretty nearly equal measure with the change in its character. Its cosmopolitanism has grown prodigiously, yet its self-consciousness far from diminishing has distinctly deepened--if one may properly speak of depth in connection with it. No doubt the chameleon's changes, even shallower, quicken its sense of self. Vignettes of Manhattan should therefore appeal to such actual local pride and public spirit as we have, as well as to a historic interest in a previous epoch of their subject's evolution--as the pace of the day requires us to consider the aspect, character and manners of twenty-five years ago, when Mr. Matthews had the idea of fixing these in the framework of the short story. Besides, a good deal of the scent of those roses survives.