our Addresses, now in every sense rejected, might probably have never
seen the light, had not some good angel whispered us to betake
ourselves to Mr. John Miller, a dramatic publisher, then residing in
Bow Street, Covent Garden. No sooner had this gentleman looked over
our manuscript, than he immediately offered to take upon himself all
the risk of publication, and to give us half the profits, SHOULD
THERE BE ANY; a liberal proposition, with which we gladly closed. So
rapid and decided was its success, at which none were more
unfeignedly astonished than its authors, that Mr. Miller advised us
to collect some Imitations of Horace, which had appeared anonymously
in the Monthly Mirror, {5} offering to publish them upon the same
terms. We did so accordingly; and as new editions of the Rejected
Addresses were called for in quick succession, we were shortly
enabled to sell our half copyright in the two works to Mr. Miller for
one thousand pounds! We have entered into this unimportant detail,
not to gratify any vanity of our own, but to encourage such literary
beginners as may be placed in similar circumstances; as well as to
impress upon publishers the propriety of giving more consideration to
the possible merit of the works submitted to them, than to the mere
magic of a name.

To the credit of the genus irritabile be it recorded, that not one of
those whom we had parodied or burlesqued ever betrayed the least
soreness on the occasion, or refused to join in the laugh that we had
occasioned. With most of them we subsequently formed
acquaintanceship; while some honoured us with an intimacy which still
continues, where it has not been severed by the rude hand of Death.
Alas! it is painful to reflect, that of the twelve writers whom we
presumed to imitate, five are now no more; the list of the deceased
being unhappily swelled by the most illustrious of all, the clarum et