have happened--I used words such as were used at that time--1601. I sent
it anonymously to a magazine, and how the editor abused it and the
sender!"

But that man was a praiser of Rabelais and had been saying, 'O that we
had a Rabelais!' I judged that I could furnish him one.

"Then I took it to one of the greatest, best and most learned of Divines
[Rev. Joseph H. Twichell] and read it to him. He came within an ace of
killing himself with laughter (for between you and me the thing was
dreadfully funny. I don't often write anything that I laugh at myself,
but I can hardly think of that thing without laughing). That old Divine
said it was a piece of the finest kind of literary art--and David Gray of
the Buffalo Courier said it ought to be printed privately and left behind
me when I died, and then my fame as a literary artist would last."

FRANKLIN J. MEINE





THE FIRST PRINTING
Verbatim Reprint


[Date, 1601.]

CONVERSATION, AS IT WAS BY THE SOCIAL FIRESIDE, IN THE TIME OF THE
TUDORS.