CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION.-TO MY REVIEWERS. IN the first place I thank you all very heartily. You have given me some useful information and a good deal of wholesome correction. You make me regret that I did not present myself to the world in my own name at twenty-five instead of seventy-five. It has always been my nature to learn by sad experience—that is, by chastisement, of one sort or another for I am but a lump of clay, with as many sides as I have fallen upon, and as many impressions as I have suffered collisions. But I must acquit myself of a burden. My dear friends, I am ashamed of you. You had a chance such as never fell to a reviewer before, and not one of you discovered it. The head and front of my offending in the matter of spelling was the addition of the final e to the name of the famous Provost of Oriel. Certainly I ought not to have added it. Sixty-three years ago he kindly put my name down for admission to his college, and sixty years ago he wrote to Dr. Russell, directing him to VOL. I. B |