to a waiver
of all proofs and vouchers in demonstration of the authenticity of this
tale, which is "simply told as it was told to me." Any one who can show
that it is not the true tale, will greatly oblige, if he can and will a
tale unfold, that _is_ the true one. If this is not the true story
and history of the horse-shoe's charm against the wicked one, what
_is_? That's the question.

There's nothing like candour; and so it is here candidly and ingenuously
confessed that the original deed mentioned in the poem, has hitherto
eluded the most diligent searches and researches. As yet, it cannot be
found, notwithstanding all the patient, zealous, and persevering efforts
of learned men, erudite antiquarians, law and equity chiffonniers, who
have poked and pored, in, through, over, and among, heaps, bundles,
and collections, of old papers, vellums, parchments, deeds, muniments,
documents, testaments, instruments, ingrossments, records, writings,
indentures, deed polls, escrows, books, bills, rolls, charters,
chirographs, and exemplifications, in old English, German text, black
letter, red letter, round-hand, court-hand, Norman French, dog Latin,
and law gibberish, occupying all sorts of old boxes, old bookcases, old
chests, old cupboards, old desks, old drawers, old presses, and old
shelves, belonging to the Dunstan branch of the old Smith family. At
one moment, during the searches, it is true, hopes were excited on the
perception of a faint brimstone odour issuing from an antiquated iron
box found among some rubbish; but instead of any vellum or parchment,
there were only the unused remains of some bundles of veteran matches,
with their tinder-box accomplice, which had been thrown aside and
forgotten, ever since the time when the functions of those old hardened
incendiaries, flint and steel, were extinguished by the lucifers.
All further search, it is feared, will be in vain; and the deed is now
believed to be as irrecoverably lost, as the musty muster-roll of Battle
Abbey.

A legal friend has volunteered an opinion, that certain supposed defects
in the alleged deed evince its spuriousness, and even if genuine, its
inefficiency. His words are, "The absence of all legal consideration,
that is to say, valuable consideration, such as money, or money's worth;
or good consideration, such as natural love and affection, would render
the deed void, or voidable, as a mere _nudum pactum_. [See
_Plowden_.] Moreover, an objection ari