PREFACE.

MOST Courteous Reader, could you but experience the ennui of inditing a preface, introduction, avant-propos, in short, that half-dozen of pages, whose office, like that of a certain lordly personage in waiting on a certain occasion, is to usher on the scene a more or less goodly company, all in their courtly attire ;-were you reduced to such extremity, you would unquestionably feel some indulgence for the wight who is now called upon by his worthy publisher to scribble the preamble de rigueur. To the