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INTRODUCTION.


I cannot recollect the precise day, but it was some time in the month of
November 1839, that I took one of my usual rambles without design or
destination. I detest a premeditated route--I always grow tired at the
first mile; but with a free course, either in town or country, I can
saunter about for hours, and feel no other fatigue but what a tumbler of
toddy and a pipe can remove. It was this disposition that made me
acquainted with the fraternity of the "Puffs." I would premise, gentle
reader, that as in my peregrinations I turn down any green lane or dark
alley that may excite my admiration or my curiosity--hurry through
glittering saloons or crowded streets--pause at the cottage door or shop
window, as it best suits my humour, so, in my intercourse with you, I
shall digress, speculate, compress, and dilate, as my fancy or my
convenience wills it. This is a blunt acknowledgment of my intentions; but
as travellers are never sociable till they have cast aside the formalities
of compliment, I wished to start with you at the first stage as an old
acquaintance. The course is not usual, and, therefore, I adopt it; and it
was by thus stepping out of a common street into a common hostel that I
became possessed of the _matériel_ of those papers, which I trust will
hereafter tend to cheat many into a momentary forgetfulness of some care.
I have no other ambition; there are philosophers enough to mystify or
enlighten the world without my "nose of Turk and Tartar's lips" being
thrust into the cauldron, whose

--"Charms of powerful trouble,