"He that writes
Or makes a feast, more certainly invites
His judges than his friends; there's not a guest
But will find something wanting or ill dress'd."
In laying before the majesty of the public a couple of volumes like
the present, it has become customary for the author to disclaim in his
preface all original design of _perpetrating a book_, as if there were
even more than the admitted _quantum_ of sinfulness in the act.
Whether or not such disavowals now-a-day receive all the credence they
merit, is not for the writer to say; and whether, were the prefatory
asseveration, as in the present case, diametrically opposed to what it
often is, the reception would be different, is even more difficult to
predict. The articles imbodied in the following volumes were, a
portion of them, in their original, hasty production, _designed_ for
the press; yet the author unites in the disavowal of his predecessors
of all intention at that time of perpetrating _a book_.
In the early summer of '36, when about starting upon a ramble over the
prairies of the "Far West," in hope of renovating the energies of a
shattered constitution, a request was made of the writer, by the
distinguished editor of the Louisville Journal, to contribute {vi} to
the columns of that periodical whatever, in the course of his
pilgrimage, might be deemed of sufficient interest.[1] A series of
articles soon after made their appearance in that paper under the
title, "_Sketches of a Traveller_." They were, as their name purports,
mere sketches from a traveller's _portfeuille_, hastily thrown upon
paper whenever time, place, or opportunity rendered convenient; in the
steamboat saloon, the inn bar-room, the log-cabin of the wilderness,
or upon the venerable mound of the Western prairie. With such favour
were these hasty productions received, and so extensively were they
circulated, that the writer, on returning from his pilgrimage to "the
shrine of health," was induced, by the solicitations of partial
friends, to enter at his leisure upon the preparation for the press of
a mass of MSS. of a similar character, written at the time, which had
never been published; a thorough revision and enlargement of that
which had appeared, united with _this_, it was thought, would furnish
a passable volume or two upon the "Far West." Two years of residence
in the West have since passed away; and the arrangement for the press
of the fugitive sheets of a wanderer's sketch-book would not yet,
perhaps, have been deemed of sufficient importance to warrant the
necessary labour, had he not been daily reminded that his productions,
whatever their merit, were already public property so far as could be
the case, and at the mercy of every one who thought proper to assume
paternity. "Forbearance ceased to be longer a virtue," and the result
is now before the {vii} reader. But, while alluding to that aid which
his labours may have rendered to others, the author would not fail
fully to acknowledge his own indebtedness to those distinguished
writers upon the West who have preceded him. To Peck, Hall, Flint,
Wetmore, and to others, his acknowledgments are due and are
respectfully tendered.[2]
In extenuation of the circumstance that some portions of these
volumes have already appeared, though in a crude state, before the
public, the author has but to suggest that many works, with which the
present will not presume to compare, have made their debut on the
unimposing pages of a periodical. Not to dwell upon the writings of
Addison and Johnson, and other classics of British literature, several
of Bulwer's most polished productions, the elaborate Essays of Elia,
Wirt's British Spy, Hazlitt's Philosophical Reviews, Coleridge's
Friend, most of the novels of Captain Marryatt and Theodore Hook, and
many of the most elegant works of the day, have been prepared for the
pages of a magazine.
And now, with no slight misgiving, does the author commit his
firstborn bantling to the tender mercies of an impartial public.
Criticism he does not deprecate, still less does he brave it; and
farther than either is he from soliciting undue favour. Yet to the
_reader_, as he grasps him by the hand in parting, would he commit his
book, with the quaint injunction of a distinguished but eccentric old
English writer upon an occasion somewhat similar:
"I exhort all people, gentle and simple, men, {viii} women, and
children, to buy, to read, to extol these labours of mine. Let them
not fear to defend every article; for I will bear them harmless. I
have arguments good store, and can easily confute, either logically,
theologically, or metaphysically, all those who oppose me."
E. F.
New-York, Oct., 1838.