THE ROUND TABLE CLUB: OR, CONVERSATIONS, SCENICAL, SCIENTIFIC, HISTORICAL, AND SOCIAL BY JAMES BROWN, EDITOR. ELGIN PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR, BY JAMES BLACK. MDCCCLXXIII. 270. f. 390. то DR. JAMES TAYLOR, EASTON, ELGIN, LATE OF THE HONOURABLE EAST INDIA COMPANY'S SERVICE, AUTHOR OF "EDWARD I. IN THE NORTH OF SCOTLAND," This Volume IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED, BY HIS MUCH FAVOURED AND GRATEFUL FRIEND, THE AUTHOR. PREFACE. 66 DURING an editorial life of nearly thirty years, I have, along with other work, written a monthly paper, called the Club-a "Standard Club," when I was in connection with the Montrose Standard; and a 'Round Table Club," during the eighteen years I have been in Elgin. These papers having been well received by the public here, and elsewhere, I have been induced to republish a number of them in the form of a volume, from a conviction that they are, perhaps, worthy of being preserved from the common fate of old newspapers. I have had no small difficulty in making a selection of Clubs to fill an ordinary sized volume out of a quantity of letterpress, extending over nearly one thousand newspaper columns, that would fill ten volumes instead of one. Instead of reprinting a number of Clubs as they were originally written, I once thought of making a compilation, but, upon more mature reflection, I came to be convinced that this might be "meddling and muddling," as the Clubs are more than three hundred in number, and connected conversations. Though my field for choice has been a wide one, I have therefore confined myself, as it were, to a small part of it. I have gone over all the ground, I think, carefully; but, as it unfortunately happens that authors are not always the best judges of the merits of what they have written, perhaps I have not made the best possible selection for the present volume. Be this as it may, I have given, along with what may be called light reading, some facts not generally found in novels or newspapers. In writing the Club, I have, from the first, endeavoured to dress up scientific, historical, social, and moral truths in such a manner as to make them generally attractive, and however I may have succeeded in this, the public still encourage me to continue. Fiction, in dialogue and narrative, is the |
