THE Rising Sun. THE CHAPTER I. AUTHOR SETTLES A TRIFLING ACCOUNT WITH THE READER, AND GIVES HIM SOME IMPORTANT LITERARY INFORMATION. INTRODUCTION. THE extensive and rapid sale of the former part of this work, nowithstanding many disadvantageous circumstances, has so decidedly spoken the favourable opinion entertained of it by the public, and, indeed, we cannot see any reason why they should entertain any other of a work intended for their benefit; that, ha ving obtained a further part of the old original MS. by (it matters not what kind of) accident-whether, like Sterne's fragment, it en closed a pat of butter, or enveloped a pound of cheese or candles, we are encouraged to perform the promise made to the Reader, at the latter end of the second volume- that if the remainder should ever, by chance, fall into our possession, and should be worthy of attention, we would communicate it with that fidelity, for which we took great credit to ourselves, in giving the former part of the Rising Sun. We have obtained more of the MS. and we deem it worthy of attention; but as on pursuing a journey in the morning, there is always an account to settle at the inn where we have rested on the preceding night, with the landlord or landlady, waiter, chambermaid, boot-cleaner, &c. &c. so we also have a trifling affair to settle with the public (short reckonings make long friends and so we hope to find) on account of the former part of the work. As we travelled incog. after the manner of other great men, through the streets, we generally stopped at the booksellers' shop-windows to witness and enjoy the attention which the ornamental dress of our bantling attracted. Those, judging only from the external appearances of the work, that is, the engravings, declared that it must be prodigiously humourous, funny, and, what is more than most works could boast, have some meaning in it.Our vanity was flattered!-Those judges were, perhaps, as well able to appreciate the merits of the work, as the weightier critics, whom, on our entrance into the shops, we found descanting on the title page, than which they seldom deign to go farther. Even that was too deep for them, as they no sooner came to the honorary addendum to our name, (F.S.M.) than they were like a pack of hounds at a dead fault. After having puzzled their brains to no purpose, and consulted to as little, every book which gives an explanation of these important abbreviations, (which are now grown so numerous that we have some thoughts of compiling a separate dictionary of them, in four volumes to match with Dr. Johnson's superb folio edi tion) these critical gentlemen agreed, that we must have obtained a trifling degree at some German University, where they are to be bought (as some one, I believe Peter Pindar, informs us) for the price of a pair of shoes for each of the heads or else that we had attempted to impose 4 upon the public, by impressing the capitals of the Alphabet into our service without leave of either University, College, or Academy. Our vanity was, for a moment, levelled with the dust; but, on serious reflection, we found that we had more sound reason to despise such critics, than they had for their affected contempt of us; and • Richard was himself again !' To exculpate ourselves from so heavy a charge as that of attempting to pass a deception upon a liberal and discerning public, we shall ingenuously confess that we owe nothing to any University, College, or Public Academy, as we have never, like the jay in the fable, borrowed any of their feathers; and yet, the Roman Letters, with which we have graced our English name, are ours by birth-right, and we will use them at our pleasure, in spite of Universities, Colleges, and Academies.-Such auxiliaries are now grown a stale literary trick, but what is 'sauce for the goose, is sauce for the gander!If the public are so absurd as to imagine that those books contain the greatest share of sense, to which are prefixed the names of the authors |