Some of these papers were published in the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER, and having met with a favorable reception from the Public, and a portion of the Press, the author has yielded to the solicitations of his own vanity, and other flattering friends, and collected them in a volume with other pieces of the same general character. The scheme of the articles he believes to be original in design and execution, - at least, no other work with which he is acquainted, has been published in the United States designed to illustrate the periods, the characters, and the phases of society, some notion of which is attempted to be given in this volume. The author, under the tremor of a first publication, felt strongly inclined to offer a sneaking apology for the many errors and imperfections of his work; such as the fact that the articles were written in haste, under the pressure of professional engagements and amidst constant interruptions; and that he has no time or opportunity for correction and revision. But he anticipated the too ready answer to such a plea: "If you had no time to write well, why did you write at all? Who constrained you? If you were not in dress to see company, why come unbidden into the presence of the public? Why not, at least, wait until you were fit to be presented?" He confesses that he sees no way to answer these tough questions, unless the apology of Falstaff for rushing into the presence of King Hal, "before he had time to have made new liveries" - "stained with travel and sweating with desire to see him," - be a good one - as, "inferring the zeal he had to see him" - "the earnestness of affection" - "the devotion:" but in poor Jack's case, "not to deliberate, not to remember, not to have patience to shift him," was not a very effectual excuse for his coming out of sorts; and we are afraid, that that other Sovereign, the Public, is not more facile of approach, or more credulous of excuses; for, unfortunately, the ardor of an author's greeting is something beyond the heat of the Public's reception of him, or, as Pat expresses it, the reciprocity of feeling is all on one side.
