lest
part, it is difficult for me to live back into the circumstances and
conditions under which they were written, or to mark, except to a very
limited extent, how far to Aytoun, and how far to myself, separately, the
contents of the volume are to be assigned. I found this difficult when I
wrote Aytoun's Life in 1867, and it is necessarily a matter of greater
difficulty now in 1903.

I can but endeavour to show how Aytoun and I came together, and how for
two or three years we worked together in literature. Aytoun (born 21st
June 1813) was three years older than myself, and he was known already as
a writer in 'Blackwood's Magazine' when I made his acquaintance in 1841.
For some years I had been writing in Tait's and Fraser's Magazines, and
elsewhere, articles and verses, chiefly humorous, both in prose and
verse, under the _nom de guerre_ of Bon Gaultier. This name, which
seemed a good one for the author of playful and occasionally satirical
papers, had caught my fancy in Rabelais, {vii} where he says of himself,
"A moy n'est que honneur et gloire d'estre diet et repute Bon Gaultier et
bon Compaignon; en ce nom, suis bien venue en toutes bonnes compaignees
de Pantagruelistes."

It was to one of these papers that I owed my introduction to Aytoun.
What its nature was may be inferred from its title--"Flowers of Hemp; or,
The Newgate Garland. By One of the Family." Like most of the papers on
which we subsequently worked together, the object was not merely to
amuse, but also to strike at some prevailing literary craze or vitiation
of taste. I have lived to see many such crazes since. Every decade
seems to produce one. But the particular craze against which this paper
was directed was the popularity of novels and songs, of which the
ruffians of the Newgate Calendar were the accepted heroes. If my memory
does not deceive me, it began with Harrison Ainsworth's 'Rookwood,' in
which the gallantries of Dick Turpin, and the brilliant description of
his famous Ride to York, caught the public fancy. Encouraged by the
success of this book, Ainsworth next wooed the sympathies of the public
for Jack Sheppard and his associates in his novel of that name. The
novel was turned into a melodrama, in which Mrs Keeley's clever
embodiment of that "marvellous boy" made for months and months the
fortunes of the Adelphi Theatre; while the sonorous musical voice of Paul
Bedford as Blueskin in the same play brought into vogue a song with