grin a recognition to me; not a waiter from the Trois Freres to the
Wilde Mann doesn't trail his napkin to earth as he sees me. Ministers
speak up when I stroll into the Chamber, and _prima donnas_ soar above
the orchestra, and warble in ecstasy as I enter the pit.

I don't like--I declare to you I do not like--saying these things; it
smacks of vanity. Now for my plan. I purpose to put these my gifts at
your disposal The year before us will doubtless be an eventful one.
What between Danes, Poles, and Italians, there must be a row somewhere.
The French are very eager for war; and the Austrians, as Paddy
says, "are blue-moulded for want of a beatin'." There will be grand
"battle-pieces" to paint; but, better than these, portraits, groups,
"tableaux de genre"--Teniers bits, too, at the porch of an ale-house,
and warm little interiors, in the style of Mieris. I shall be
instructive at times--very instructive; and whenever I am very nice
and dull, be assured that I'm "full of information, and know my subject
thoroughly."

As "your own correspondent," I am free to go wherever I please. I have
left Mrs O'D. in Ireland, and I revel in an Arcadian liberty. These
are all my credentials; and if with their aid I can furnish you any
amusement as to the goings-on of the world and its wife, or the doings
of that amiable couple in politics, books, theatres, or socialities,
I seek for nothing more congenial to my taste, nor more adapted to my
nature, as a bashful Irishman.

If I will not often obtrude, I will not altogether avoid, my personal
experiences; for there is this to be said, that no testimony is worth
much unless we know something of the temper, the tastes, and the
character of the witness. We have all heard, for instance, of the
gentleman who couldn't laugh at Munden's drolleries on the stage for
thinking of a debt of ten pounds that the actor owed him: and this same
spirit has a great deal to do--far more than we like to own--with
our estimate of foreign countries. It is so hard to speak well of the
climate where we had that horrible rheumatism, or laud the honesty of a
people when we think of that rascally scoundrel of the Hotel d'Odessa.
For these reasons I mean to come into the witness-box occasionally, and
give you frankly, not merely my opinions, but the way they were come by.
I don't affect to be superior to prejudices; I have as many of these as
a porcupine has bristles. There's all the egotism I mean to inflict o