alternative--all my life in the mill-house, grinding for my very bread,
than be brought forth to make sport for the Philistine lords and ladies.
This proceeds from no dislike, real or affected, to the aristocracy of
these realms. But they have their place, and I have mine; and, like
the iron and earthen vessels in the old fable, we can scarce come
into collision without my being the sufferer in every sense. It may be
otherwise with the sheets which I am now writing. These may be opened
and laid aside at pleasure; by amusing themselves with the perusal, the
great will excite no false hopes; by neglecting or condemning them, they
will inflict no pain; and how seldom can they converse with those whose
minds have toiled for their delight without doing either the one or the
other.

In the better and wiser tone of feeling with Ovid only expresses in one
line to retract in that which follows, I can address these quires--

Parve, nec invideo, sine me, liber, ibis in urbem.

Nor do I join the regret of the illustrious exile, that he himself could
not in person accompany the volume, which he sent forth to the mart
of literature, pleasure, and luxury. Were there not a hundred similar
instances on record, the rate of my poor friend and school-fellow, Dick
Tinto, would be sufficient to warn me against seeking happiness in the
celebrity which attaches itself to a successful cultivator of the fine
arts.

Dick Tinto, when he wrote himself artist, was wont to derive his origin
from the ancient family of Tinto, of that ilk, in Lanarkshire, and
occasionally hinted that he had somewhat derogated from his gentle blood
in using the pencil for his principal means of support. But if Dick's