INTRODUCTORY EPISTLE

CAPTAIN CLUTTERBUCK TO THE REVEREND
DR. DRYASDUST

DEAR SIR,

I readily accept of, and reply to the civilities with which you have
been pleased to honour me in your obliging letter, and entirely agree
with your quotation, of _"Quam bonum et quam jucundum!"_ We may indeed
esteem ourselves as come of the same family, or, according to our
country proverb, as being all one man's bairns; and there needed no
apology on your part, reverend and dear sir, for demanding of me any
information which I may be able to supply respecting the subject of
your curiosity. The interview which you allude to took place in the
course of last winter, and is so deeply imprinted on my recollection,
that it requires no effort to collect all its most minute details.

You are aware that the share which I had in introducing the Romance,
called THE MONASTERY, to public notice, has given me a sort of
character in the literature of our Scottish metropolis. I no longer
stand in the outer shop of our bibliopolists, bargaining for the
objects of my curiosity with an unrespective shop-lad, hustled among
boys who come to buy Corderies and copy-books, and servant girls
cheapening a pennyworth of paper, but am cordially welcomed by the
bibliopolist himself, with, "Pray, walk into the back-shop, Captain.
Boy, get a chair for Captain Clutterbuck. There is the newspaper,
Captain--to-day's paper;" or, "Here is the last new work--there is a
folder, make free with the leaves;" or, "Put it in your pocket and
carry it home;" or, "We will make a bookseller of you, sir, and you