Willingly leaving this matter to the decision of the public, since we
cannot be umpires in our own cause, we proceed to detail such
circumstances attending the writing and publication of our little
work, as may literally meet the wishes of the present proprietor of
the copyright, who has applied to us for a gossiping Preface. Were
we disposed to be grave and didactic, which is as foreign to our mood
as it was twenty years ago, we might draw the attention of the
reader, in a fine sententious paragraph, to the trifles upon which
the fate of empires, as well as a four-and-sixpenny volume of
parodies, occasionally hangs in trembling balance. No sooner was the
idea of our work conceived, than it was about to be abandoned in
embryo, from the apprehension that we had no lime to mature and bring
it forth, as it was indispensable that it should be written, printed,
and published by the opening of Drury Lane Theatre, which would only
allow us an interval of six weeks, and we had both of us other
avocations that precluded us from the full command of even that
limited period. Encouraged, however, by the conviction that the
thought was a good one, and by the hope of making a lucky hit, we set
to work con amore, our very hurry not improbably enabling us to
strike out at a heat what we might have failed to produce so well,
had we possessed time enough to hammer it into more careful and
elaborate form.

Our first difficulty, that of selection, was by no means a light one.
Some of our most eminent poets--such, for instance, as Rogers and
Campbell--presented so much beauty, harmony, and proportion in their
writings, both as to style and sentiment, that if we had attempted to
caricature them, nobody would have recognised the likeness; and if we
had endeavoured to give a servile copy of their manner, it would only