f what is manifestly
my chief authorial work in life, "Proverbial Philosophy." To ensure
accuracy, and not leave all the details to oftentimes unfaithful memory,
I will give a few extracts from "a brief account" of the book, set down
in 1838, at the beginning of Volume I. of "My Literary Heirloom," now
grown to many volumes, containing newspaper cuttings, anecdotes, and
letters and scraps of all sorts relating to my numerous works.

"In the year 1828, when under Mr. Holt's roof at Albury (anno aetatis meae
18), I bethought myself, for the special use and behoof of my cousin
Isabella, who seven years after became my wife, that I would transcribe
my notions on the holy estate of matrimony; a letter was too light, and
a formal essay too heavy, and I didn't care to versify my thoughts, so I
resolved to convey them in the manner of Solomon's Proverbs or the
'Wisdom' of Jesus the Son of Sirach: and I did so,--successively, in the
Articles first on Marriage, then Love, then Friendship, and fourthly on
Education: several other pieces growing afterwards. Whilst at Albury, my
cousin showed some of these to our rector, Hugh M'Neile, who warmly
praised them, and recommended their publication; but, regarding them as
private and personal, I would not hear of it, and in fact it was nine
years before they saw print; thus literally, though I meant it not then,
exemplifying the Horatian advice, 'nonumque premantur in annum.'
However, one day in August 1838, Mr. Stebbing, whose chapel, in the
Hampstead Road I used to attend when living at Gothic Cottage, Regent's
Park, in my first years of marriage, visiting me and urging me to write
something for the _Athenaeum_, which he was then editing, I was induced
to show him these earliest essays; but I declined to _give_ them to him,
whereat he was angered; perhaps the rather in that I objected to
piecemeal publication, possibly also casting some reproach (as the
fashion of the day then was) upon magazine and journalistic literature
generally. That I made an enemy of him was evidenced by a spiteful
little notice in the _Athenaeum_ of April 21st (three months after my
first series was published) stating that it was 'a book not likely to
please beyond the circle of a few minds as eccentric as the author's.'
The same false friend excluded me altogether from any notice in the
_Examiner_ wherein he had some literary influence." To this day these
reviews have been my foes, which I regret.

"Still, Mr.