ABSTRACT
In prosperous times author have sometimes felt his fancy and powers of language flag, but adversity is to him atleast a tonic and bracer; the fountain is awakened from its inmost recesses, as if the spirit of affliction had troubled it in his passage. The author says, 'Turnkey, lock the cell!' My life, though not without its fits of waking and strong exertion, has been a sort of dream, spent in 'Chewing the cud of sweet and bitter fancy'. Cadell has received letters from London which all but positively announce the failure of Hurst and Jack Robinson, so that Constable & Co. must follow, and the author must go with poor James Ballantyne for company. Now taken in my pitch of pride, and nearly winged, because London chooses to be in an uproar and in the tumult of bulls and bears, a poor inoffensive lion like myself is pushed to the wall.
