PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION.

VERY man is two men at the least.

Ev

Sydney Smith says St. Paul was a thousand men. But every man is good and bad, wise and foolish, conceited and not. It is the preponderance that makes the difference and the outward man. As one of the bravest men in the British army once said to me,

When we go into battle we are all afraid, but we don't all show it.'

Well, when my friend and publisher spoke to me of putting these odds and ends into a volume, I said at first 'No;' now I am saying 'Yes,' though I still feel both. No one can so well know of how little worth much of these occasional papers-what old Creech would have called Fugitive Pieces-are, how much better

they might and ought to have been-as their author: this was the No-the Yes was a sneaking hope that others might not altogether agree with me. This was the conceit and vanity bit having its say. The struggle, somewhat protracted, as to which would prevail, is now over. The 'bit' and David Douglas have prevailed, and I must content myself, after the manner of the deliverance of Socrates and Voltaire on a more important matter, with the reflection that whether I said yes or no I would regret it.

With regard to the paper which gives its name to this volume, I hardly know how to excuse myself, it is so unworthy of its delightful subject, so much more so now than when it appeared in the North British Review, by reason of its not having the woodcuts. It may truly be said that it is dished for want of the plates-to give a twist to Rogers's wellknown joke. My only hope is that the reader, in his anger at being asked to look at what he

cannot see, may be driven to Punch and elsewhere, and then I am sure his anger will be appeased. He will be grateful, indeed, to Canon Hole for what he has said of his friend, and the friend of us all.

I cannot end without most affectionate and sorrowing mention of two dear dead friendsThomas Constable, who had a true literary faculty as well as palate, and of whom it may be said-as of too few-that to him to live was to love; and Miss Fleming, the sister of Pet Marjorie, who survived her seventy years, and who, I believe, seldom passed a day without thinking, and I dare say without speaking, of her darling, who had lain at her heart all these years.

RUTLAND STREET,
Jan. 3, 1882.

b

THE RESTORATION:

UNPUBLISHED VERSES

BY THOMAS DAVIDSON,

6 THE SCOTTISH PROBATIONER.'l

My love, she walked yon forest glade,
At the waning of the year,
She lifted a leaf from off the ground-
A leaf full dry and sere.

My love, she bore it in her hand-
It lived through every vein.
My love, she placed it on her breast,
And it straight grew green again.

My love, she wears it at her heart;
Will wear it till she die.

My love, thou hast been life to me,
-For I trow that leaf am I.

PEASE GLEN, NEAR COCKBURNSPATH,

Sept. 1865.

1 'The Scottish Probationer,' by James Brown, D.D. A worthy record of a man of rare genius—' dead ere his prime.'

6 THERE'S LIFE in the old dog yet,' ETC. ETC.