READER.Prose! so it is; at least the greater part of it; and that which looks like verse may be the most prosaic of all. Book.True; but, to make amends, you may expect that the prose of a poet will be poetical. Reader. If I thought so, I would fling you into the fire at once; for next to maudlin verse I hate "drunken prose." Your title, to be sure, is a little ominous; - what does it mean? Book. Every book must have a title, as every man must have a name. Reader. But the title ought to be significant of the contents. Book. No more than a man's name need be indicative of his character, which, however A 3 fashionable among savages, could not be toTerated in civil society. Reader. No, indeed; we should soon be all savages again, if it were so: who would choose to be reminded of what he was tiger, a bear, or a buffalo, like a wild Indian who glories in the resemblance, every time his name was pronounced? But it is quite another thing with books, which have no feelings to be hurt. Book. But we have characters to lose, and it would be infatuation to throw them away on the outset. Great authors, who ought to be the best judges what to call their offspring, have often given them titles which were masks rather than manifestations of their purpose. "The Diversions of Purley," who could expect to be tasked with a game at hard words after such a holiday decoy? Take the other aspect of this double-faced sphynx-""Ewa WтegóvTa;" make "winged words" of these, and still, so far as concerns the subject (happily hieroglyphic as they are), they will be "Heathen Greek," not to the vulgar only, but to the learned themselves. Reader. Yes; but when you have got - into the spirit of the treatise you will understand the propriety of the one title, and pardon the affectation of the other. Book. That is a secret with which, you see, he has not entrusted me. Reader.- What! don't you know who wrote you? Book. I should be the wisest book that ever was written, if I did; and that I am sure you do not expect me to be. Reader. No, nor desire you; it will be sufficient if you are wise enough for me to understand, without the trouble of being made wiser by reading you. Book. Since you are so reasonable, I will tell you all that I know about my author, which is just so much as he has been pleased to communicate to me for your information. |
