INITIAL CHAPTER.

Ἐξ δυ δὴ τὰ πρῶτα.—HOMER.

THEY Who remember the year 1800 will remember also the great controversy whether it was the beginning of a century or the end of one; a controversy in which all magazines, all newspapers, and all persons took part. Now, as it has been deemed expedient to divide this work, or to speak more emphatically this opus, or more emphatically still, this ergon, into chapters ante-initial and post-initial, a dispute of the same nature might arise among the commentators in after ages, if especial care were not now taken to mark distinctly the beginning. This, therefore, is the initial chapter, neither ante nor post, but standing between both; the point of initiation-the goal of the antes, the starting-place of the posts; the mark at which the former end their career, and from whence the latter take their departure.

THE SUBJECT OF THIS HISTORY AT HOME AND AT TEA.

If thou be a severe sour-complexioned man, then I here disallow thee to be a competent judge.-IZAAK WALTON.

THE clock of St. George's had struck five. Mrs. Dove had just poured out the doctor's seventh cup of tea. The doctor was sitting in his armchair. Sir Thomas was purring upon his knees; and Pompey stood looking up to his mistress, wagging his tail, sometimes whining with a short note of impatience, and sometimes gently putting his paw against her apron to remind her that he wished for another bit of bread and butter. Barnaby was gone to the farm, and Nobs was in the stable.

CHAPTER II. P. I.

WHEREIN CERTAIN QUESTIONS ARE PROPOSED CONCERNING TIME, PLACE, AND PERSONS.

Quis? quid? ubi? quibus auxiliis? cur? quomodo? quando?
Technical Verse.

THUS have I begun according to the most approved forms; not like those who begin the Trojan war from Leda's egg, or the history of Great Britain from Adain, or the life of General Washington from the discovery of the New World; but in conformity to the Horatian precept, rushing into the middle of things. Yet the giant Moulineau's appeal to his friend the story-telling ram may well be remembered here: Belier mon ami, si tu voulois commencer par le commencement tu me ferois grand plaisir. For in the few lines of the preceding chapter how much is there that requires explanation! Who was Nobs? Who was Barnaby? Who was the doctor? Who was Mrs. Dove? The place, where? The time, when? The persons, who?

"I maie not tell you all at once;
But as I maie and can, I shall
By order tellen you it all."

So saith Chaucer; and in the same mind, facilius discimus que congruo dicuntur ordine quam quæ sparsim et confusim, saith Erasmus. Think a moment, I beseech thee, reader, what order is! Not the mere word which is so often vociferated in the House of Commons, or uttered by the speaker ore rotundo, when it is necessary for him to assume the tone of Zevs vyißpeμirns; but order in its essence and truth, in itself and in its derivatives.

Waiving the orders in council, and the order of the day, a phrase so familiar in the disorderly days of the French National Convention, think, gentle reader, of the order of knighthood, of holy orders, of the orders of architecture, the Linnæan orders, the orderly sergeant, the ordinal numbers, the ordinary of Newgate, the ordinary on Sundays at two o'clock in the environs of the metropolis, the ordinary faces of those who partake of what is ordinarily provided for them there; and under the auspices of government itself, and par excellence the Extraordinary Gazette. And as the value of health is never truly and feelingly understood except in sickness,

contemplate for a moment what the want of order is. Think of disorder in things remote, and then as it approaches thee. In the country wherein thou livest, bad; in the town whereof thou art an inhabitant, worse; in thine own street, worser; in thine own house, worst of all. Think of it in thy family, in thy fortune, in thine intestines. In thy affairs, distressing; in thy members, painful; in thy conduct, ruinous. Order is the sanity of the mind, the health of the body, the peace of the city, the security of the state. As the beams to a house, as the bones to the microcosm of man, so is order to all things. Abstract it from a dictionary, and thou mayst imagine the inextricable confusion which would ensue. Reject it from the alphabet, and Zerah Colburne himself could not go through the christcross-row. How then should I do without it in this history?

A Quaker by name Benjamin Lay (who was a little cracked in the head though sound at heart) took one of his compositions once to Benjamin Franklin that it might be printed and published. Franklin, having looked over the manuscript, observed that it was deficient in arrangement. "It is no matter," replied the author," print any part thou pleasest first." Many are the speeches, and the sermons, and the treatises, and the poems, and the volumes which are like Benjamin Lay's book; the head might serve for the tail, and the tail for the body, and the body for the head-either end for the middle, and the middle for either end-nay, if you could turn them inside out like a polypus, or a glove, they would be no worse for the operation.

When the excellent Hooker was on his deathbed, he expressed his joy at the prospect of entering a world of order.

CHAPTER III. P. I.

WHOLESOME OBSERVATIONS UPON THE VANITY OF FAME.

Whosoever shall address himself to write of matters of instruction, or of any other argument of importance, it behooveth that before he enter thereinto, he should resolutely determine with himself in what order he will handle the same; so shall he best accomplish that he hath undertaken, and inform the understanding, and help the memory of the reader.-GWILLIM'S Display of Heraldry.

WHO was the doctor?

We will begin with the persons for sundry reasons, general and specific. Doth not the Latin grammar teach us so to do, wherein the personal verbs come before the impersonal,