friend and patron. These pages, I have said, were the _ultimus
labor_ of mine ingenious assistant; but I say not, as the great Dr.
Pitcairn of his hero--_ultimus atque optitmis_. Alas! even the
giddiness attendant on a journey on this Manchester rail-road is not so
perilous to the nerves, as that too frequent exercise in the merry-go-
round of the ideal world, whereof the tendency to render the fancy
confused, and the judgment inert, hath in all ages been noted, not only
by the erudite of the earth, but even by many of the thick-witted
Ofelli themselves; whether the rapid pace at which the fancy moveth in
such exercitations, where the wish of the penman is to him like Prince
Houssain's tapestry, in the Eastern fable, be the chief source of
peril--or whether, without reference to this wearing speed of movement,
and dwelling habitually in those realms of imagination, be as little
suited for a man's intellect, as to breathe for any considerable space
"the difficult air of the mountain top" is to the physical structure of
his outward frame--this question belongeth not to me; but certain it is,
that we often discover in the works of the foremost of this order of
men, marks of bewilderment and confusion, such as do not so frequently
occur in those of persons to whom nature hath conceded fancy weaker of
wing, or less ambitious in flight.

It is affecting to see the great Miguel Cervantes himself, even like
the sons of meaner men, defending himself against the critics of the
day, who assailed him upon such little discrepancies and inaccuracies
as are apt to cloud the progress even of a mind like his, when the
evening is closing around it. "It is quite a common thing," says Don
Quixote, "for men who have gained a very great reputation by their
writings before they were printed, quite to lose it afterwards, or, at
least, the greater part."--"The reason is plain," answers the Bachelor
Carrasco; "their faults are more easily discovered after the books are