Chapter II: Introduction

Among various other particularities which marked the whimsicality of our Sexagenarian’s character, there were discovered in his manuscript, a great many specimens of DEDICATIONS, ready cut and dried.

Of these, some were inscribed with due solemnity to very great men, to Ministers, Prelates, Court Favourites, and so forth; others were written in a less formal style to individuals of known genius, talents, and learning; one or two were of a playful kind, and addressed to old college friends and acquaintance; one more particularly was of a facetious tendency in the character of Satan to Bonaparte. Oh! that the Sexagenarian had but lived to witness the catastrophe of that miscreant adventurer!

But of all these pieces, some composed with more and some with less care and circumspection, one more immediately forced itself upon the attention, inscribed

TO AN OLD WOMAN.

Something of an introduction seems indispensable on the present occasion, and perhaps nothing more to the purpose could easily be met with; so it is inserted _verbatim et literatim_ from the original document.

“My dear old Woman,

“Those were good old times for poor authors, when the usual
accompaniment of an adulatory Dedication to some great
personage, was ten pounds. Alas! there is no such thing
_now-a-days_. It is well if when dismissed from the audience
of the patron, you are bowed out with a little faint praise,
and a civil leer. Yet such is the effect of habit, and so
inconsistent is the character of man, that there are no authors
of equal celebrity with myself, (hem!) who will condescend to
place their works before the public, without a Dedication, or
Inscription of one kind or other.

“But as ill luck would have it, my literary pilgrimage has been
so long and so extended, that I have exhausted my catalogue
of illustrious names, numerous as it was. I am compelled, as
the French term it, “_jouer à coupe un_,” in other words, to
play alone. I am reduced to the necessity of looking about for
somebody who cannot in reason refuse the honour intended; from
whom nothing is to be expected but a good-humoured acquiescence
in whatever I may choose to say; whose vanity expects no
flattery, whose pride can receive no wound.

“Where then can I look with more complacency, comfort, and
confidence, than to

“MY DEAR OLD WOMAN?

“Here I may expatiate without fear of interruption, and
what is more, without suspicion of my sincerity upon those
intellectual qualities, which I have witnessed for almost half
a century, growing as it were from a grain of mustard-seed
to a tree, beneath whose spreading branches children and
grand-children have reposed in security and peace. I might
enlarge upon the sagacity which foresaw the approach of human
ill, on the discretion which encountered, and on the fortitude
which endured it. Yes! the imagination might indulge itself in
remembering the delight with which we traversed together, the
gay and enlivening fields of youth, and the cheerfulness and
composure with which the chilling winds of age were opposed.

“But on this subject it is time to pause, difficult as it is
to forego the last opportunity of expatiating upon these fairy
visions, the remembrance of which is still so dear.

Mirror of Life, the glories thus depart
Of all that Love, and Youth, and Fancy frame,
When painful Anguish speeds the piercing dart,
Or Envy blasts the blooming flowers of Fame.

“To conclude in plain prose. Mayst thou with whom the various
incidents of a perturbed life have been participated, the
pressure of which has again and again been alleviated by thy
sympathy, accept, in no adulatory terms of praise, but in those
of sober gratitude and truth, my heartfelt acknowledgments of
thy goodness.

“Well can I remember that when thou wast an object of
admiration, not to the gay and thoughtless alone, but to the
grave, the sedate, and the wise, that no external allurement
could ever divert thee from the obligations of duty.

“Nor can I forget, that when our earlier career was obstructed
by briars and thorns, thy sagacity found means to lessen
their asperity, and thy unwearied exertions never failed to
facilitate their removal. Surely too, amidst the sufferings and
sorrows of repeated sickness, did thy tenderness assuage the
pain, and impart the most delightful and salutary balm.

“The first vigour of my warm and youthful fancy was employed
in representing the emotions excited by thy presence. The last
occupation of my trembling pen, is to offer, with an unfeigned
devotion, the solemn prayer, that thy decline of life may be as
little rugged and disturbed as the condition of humanity will
permit; and so Farewell.”

Scilicet hæc stultos mortales fallit inanis
Spes vitæ, doctis eadem indoctisque minatur
Mors tamen, et magno finem impositura labori,
Desidiæ et magnæ.—Nunc si sapis ergo Viator
Vive tibi.

_Theodori Bezæ, Juvenilia._