The Bag, from which the following Letters are selected, was dropped by a
Twopenny Postman about two months since, and picked up by an emissary of
the Society for the Suppression of Vice, who supposing it might materially
assist the private researches of that Institution, immediately took it to
his employers and was rewarded handsomely for his trouble. Such a treasury
of secrets was worth a whole host of informers; and, accordingly, like the
Cupids of the poet (if I may use so profane a simile) who "fell at odds
about the sweet-bag of a bee,"[1] those venerable Suppressors almost
fought with each other for the honor and delight of first ransacking the
Post-Bag. Unluckily, however, it turned out upon examination that the
discoveries of profligacy which it enabled them to make, lay chiefly in
those upper regions of society which their well-bred regulations forbid
them to molest or meddle with.--In consequence they gained but very few
victims by their prize, and after lying for a week or two under Mr.
Hatchard's counter the Bag with its violated contents was sold for a
trifle to a friend of mine.
It happened that I had been just then seized with an ambition (having
never tried the strength of my wing but in a Newspaper) to publish
something or other in the shape of a Book; and it occurred to me that, the
present being such a letter-writing era, a few of these Twopenny-Post
Epistles turned into easy verse would be as light and popular a task as I
could possibly select for a commencement. I did not, however, think it
prudent to give too many Letters at first and accordingly have been
obliged (in order to eke out a sufficient number of pages) to reprint some
of those trifles, which had already appeared in the public journals. As in
the battles of ancient times, the shades of the departed were sometimes
seen among the combatants, so I thought I might manage to remedy the
thinness of my ranks, by conjuring up a few dead and forgotten ephemerons
to fill them.
Such are the motives and accidents that led to the present publication;
and as this is the first time my Muse has ever ventured out of the go-cart
of a Newspaper, though I feel all a parent's delight at seeing little Miss
go alone, I am also not without a parent's anxiety lest an unlucky fall
should be the consequence of the experiment; and I need not point out how
many living instances might be found of Muses that have suffered very
severely in their heads from taking rather too early and rashly to their
feet. Besides, a Book is so very different a thing from a Newspaper!--in
the former, your doggerel without either company or shelter must stand
shivering in the middle of a bleak page by itself; whereas in the latter
it is comfortably backed by advertisements and has sometimes even a Speech
of Mr. Stephen's, or something equally warm, for a _chauffe-pieds_--so
that, in general, the very reverse of "_laudatur et alget_" is its
destiny.
Ambition, however, must run some risks and I shall be very well satisfied
if the reception of these few Letters should have the effect of sending me
to the Post-Bag for more.
[1] Herrick.