The writer of this trifling Volume was suddenly sentenced, in the cold
evening of his life, to drink the mineral waters of one of the bubbling
springs, or brunnens, of Nassau. In his own opinion, his constitution
was not worth so troublesome a repair; but, being outvoted, he bowed
and departed.
On reaching the point of his destination, he found not only
water-bibbing--bathing--and ambulation to be the orders of the day,
but it was moreover insisted upon, that the mind was to be relaxed
inversely as the body was to be strengthened. During this severe
regimen, he was driven to amuse himself in his old age by blowing,
as he toddled about, a few literary Bubbles. His hasty sketches of
whatever chanced for the moment to please either his eyes, or his mind,
were only made--_because he had nothing else in the whole world to do_;
and he now offers them to that vast and highly respectable class of
people who read from exactly the self-same motive.
The critic must, of course, declare this production to be
vain--empty--light--hollow--superficial ...... but it is the nature of
Bubbles to be so.
"The earth hath bubbles, as the water has,
And these are of them."
MACBETH, _Act I., Scene 3_.