public favour. Through
the success of those literary efforts, I had been enabled to indulge
most of the tastes which a retired person of my station might be
supposed to entertain. In the pen of this nameless romancer, I seemed
to possess something like the secret fountain of coined gold and pearls
vouchsafed to the traveller of the Eastern Tale; and no doubt believed
that I might venture, without silly imprudence, to extend my personal
expenditure considerably beyond what I should have thought of, had my
means been limited to the competence which I derived from inheritance,
with the moderate income of a professional situation. I bought, and
built, and planted, and was considered by myself, as by the rest of the
world, in the safe possession of an easy fortune. My riches, however,
like the other riches of this world, were liable to accidents, under
which they were ultimately destined to make unto themselves wings, and
fly away. The year 1825, so disastrous to many branches of industry and
commerce, did not spare the market of literature; and the sudden
ruin that fell on so many of the booksellers could scarcely have been
expected to leave unscathed one whose career had of necessity connected
him deeply and extensively with the pecuniary transactions of that
profession. In a word, almost without one note of premonition, I found
myself involved in the sweeping catastrophe of the unhappy time,
and called on to meet the demands of creditors upon commercial
establishments with which my fortunes had long been bound up, to the
extent of no less a sum than one hundred and twenty thousand pounds.

The author having, however rashly, committed his pledges thus largely
to the hazards of trading companies, it behoved him, of course, to
abide the consequences of his conduct, and, with whatever feelings, he
surrendered on the instant every shred of property which he had been
accustomed to call his own. It became vested in the hands of gentlemen
whose integrity, prudence, and intelligence were combined with all
possible liberality and kindness of disposition, and who readily
afforded every assistance towards the execution of plans, in the
success of which the author contemplated the possibility of his ultimate
extrication, and which were of such a nature that, had assistance of
this sort been withheld, he could have had little prospect of carrying
them into effect. Among other resources which occurred was the project
of that complete a