Pelham — Volume 08

Poor Lady Glanville! the mother of one so beautiful, so gifted, and so lost. What can I say of her which "you, and you, and you—" all who are parents, cannot feel, a thousand times more acutely, in those recesses of the heart too deep for words or tears. There are yet many hours in which I find the sister of the departed in grief, that even her husband cannot console; and I—I—my friend, my brother, have I forgotten thee in death? I lay down the pen, I turn from my employment—thy dog is at my feet, and looking at me, as if conscious of my thoughts, with an eye almost as tearful as my own.

But it is not thus that I will part from my reader; our greeting was not in sorrow, neither shall be our adieus. For thee, who hast gone with me through the motley course of my confessions, I would fain trust that I have sometimes hinted at thy instruction when only appearing to strive for thy amusement. But on this I will not dwell; for the moral insisted upon often loses its effect, and all that I will venture to hope is, that I have opened to thee one true, and not utterly hacknied, page in the various and mighty volume of mankind. In this busy and restless world I have not been a vague speculator, nor an idle actor. While all around me were vigilant, I have not laid me down to sleep—even for the luxury of a poet's dream. Like the school boy, I have considered study as study, but action as delight.

Nevertheless, whatever I have seen, or heard, or felt, has been treasured in my memory, and brooded over by my thoughts. I now place the result before you,

"Sicut meus est mos,
Nescio quid meditans nugarum;—

but not, perhaps, —totus in illis."

Whatever society—whether in a higher or lower grade—I have portrayed, my sketches have been taken rather as a witness than a copyist; for I have never shunned that circle, nor that individual, which presented life in a fresh view, or man in a new relation. It is right, however, that I should add, that as I have not wished to be an individual satirist, rather than a general observer, I have occasionally, in the subordinate characters (such as Russelton and Gordon), taken only the outline from truth, and filled up the colours at my leisure and my will.

With regard to myself I have been more candid. I have not only shewn—non parca manu—my faults, but (grant that this is a much rarer exposure) my foibles; and, in my anxiety for your entertainment, I have not grudged you the pleasure of a laugh—even at my own expense. Forgive me, then, if I am not a fashionable hero—forgive me if I have not wept over a "blighted spirit," nor boasted of a "British heart;" and allow that, a man, who, in these days of alternate Werters and Worthies, is neither the one nor the other, is, at least, a novelty in print, though, I fear, common enough in life.

And, now my kind reader, having remembered the proverb, and in saying one word to thee, having said two for myself, I will no longer detain thee. Whatever thou mayest think of me and my thousand faults, both as an author, and a man, believe me it is with a sincere and affectionate wish for the accomplishment of my parting words, that I bid thee—FAREWELL!