Stebbing did me substantial good; he praised the idea as
'new, because a resuscitation of what was very old,'--and as of my own
origination in these latter days, and as a good vehicle for thoughts on
many matters: and he promised his valuable assistance to a young
author's fame,--performing as above. So, after a last interview with him
at his house, wherein I conclusively refused him, I wrote my Preface at
once, jotting down (as I recollect at the street corner post opposite
Hampstead Road Chapel) on the back of an old letter my opening
paragraph,--

"'Thoughts that have tarried in my mind, and peopled its inner
chambers,' &c., &c.

"In ten weeks from that day I had my first series ready,--supposing it
then all I should ever write;--the same assurance of a final end having
been my delusion at the close of each of my four series. My first
publisher was Rickerby of Abchurch Lane, who produced a beautifully
printed small folio volume with ornamental initials, and now very
scarce: it came to a second edition, but brought me no money,--and the
third edition failing to sell, it was in great part sent to America;
where N.P. Willis finding a copy, fancied the book that of some
forgotten author of the Elizabethan era, and quoted it week after week
in a periodical of his, _The Home Journal_, as such: years afterwards,
when he met me in London, he was scared to find that one whom he had
thought dead three hundred years was still alive and juvenile and ruddy.

"It might be thought indelicate in me to quote at length the many
pleasant greetings of the press to my first odd volumes; suffice it to
say, that the kind critics were with few exceptions unanimous in
commendation; and some great names, as Heraud, Leigh Hunt, and St. John
particularly favoured me,--the latter prophesying a tenth edition: but I
must still condescend to pick out at the end of this paper a few of the
plums of praise wherewith my early publication was indulged, if only to
please the numerous admirers of my chief 'lifework.' One comfort is that
no one of my reviewers all my life through has ever been bought or
rewarded. As to the less fulsome style of criticism, I was supposed by
the _Spectator_ to have 'written in hexameters,'--as if David or Solomon
had ever imitated Homer or some more ancient predecessor of his; and the
_Sun_ fancied that I had 'culled from Erasmus, Bacon, Franklin, and
Saavedra,' whereas I was totally ignorant of their wisdoms: Saavedra I