PREFACE.

I Do not know whether a reference to Dr. Johnson's Dictionary would show that a Commonplace-book is a book kept by a commonplace sort of person, but I should not be surprised if the Doctor had thought so, and, certainly, there is a very general opinion that collections of such scraps are mighty poor reading in sustained and coherent interest not a whit better than the Doctor's own lexicon.

Such volumes are generally a miscellaneous gathering of fragments, which the editor fancies, in a vague sort of way, will be amusing or edifying to the general public. Now as my detached pieces were brought together with no idea of pleasing anybody but myself, I hope they will have a more individual flavour, and so, in some measure, escape this very serious charge.

I fear that I may annoy some readers, for, though I have taken pains, no doubt I have sorely maltreated many of the extracts, picked up, as they were, from all sorts of people, in all kinds of places, from the corners of newspapers, and such like.

For instance, I remember hearing one of the stories-one of the very best of them, mind-in a Turkish bath; it was related by a personage with whom I was not acquainted, I could not even see him, and, as, like our first parents in Paradise, I had neither pencil nor paper about me, I was not able to secure chapter and verse.

Dear Reader, if you find your pet story has been especially massacred, make up your benevolent mind that it was the very story (which there is no doubt at all it was!) which I picked up in the Turkish bath.

I have often refrained from citing authorities, either because I did not know them, or for fear of ascribing wrongly, and thus giving just cause of offence to my accomplished friend the author of 'Pearls and Mock Pearls of History.' By this, and by other sins of omission I fear I have often defrauded authors of their just dues. I repeat that when I penned these paragraphs and made these extracts I had no notion of printing them, or I should have taken more care in their transcription, and I should certainly have been a little less vernacular in my style, which is, I own, occasionally unworthy of the dignity of print-but I feared that if I re-wrote them they might lose any little freshness they possess.

F. L.

PATCHWORK.

WANT OF EARNESTNESS.

ISAAC BARROW (1630–1677) could not tolerate people who looked on life merely from the grotesque or ludicrous point of view. If it is true,' said he, ‘that nothing has for you any relish except painted comfits and unmeaning trifles, that not even wisdom will please you, unless without its own peculiar flavour, nor truth, unless seasoned with a jest, nor reason, unless cloaked in fun, then in an unlucky hour have I been assigned as your purveyor, neither born nor bred in such a frivolous confectionery. The insatiable appetite for laughter keeps itself within no bounds. Have you crowded to this place for the purpose of listening, and studying, and making progress, or only for the sake of laughing at this thing, and making a jest of that other? There is nothing so remote from levity which you do not instantly transmute into mirth and absurdity, and let a discourse be such as to move no laughter, nothing else will please, neither dignity, nor gravity, nor solidity, neither strength, nor point, 'nor polish.'

PETS.

Human nature is not thoroughly base, it must have something to cling to; for instance, a husband or a wife, a father or a mother, a son or a daughter—if it can't have these, it puts up with an uncle or even a grandmother. The same with la belle passion, but I will not enter on that now, it is too suggestive, and would take far too long. And it is the same with friendship. Some people are entirely dependent on their friendships, they cling to the beloved as ivy embraces the oak, and they do not look unlovely as they so cling. I believe those who have this capacity are not the less happy for it. Life runs very pleasantly for them, their hours dance their feet! There are others, again, who are much more independent, if they cannot find a human being handy, they put up with a pug or a cockatoo. I know one or two very worthy people who find old chinamonsters, or even a rare postage-stamp, all-sufficing, but I think I have never come across any one who was entirely self-contained.

away with down upon

I have a friend who is blessed with a charming wife and very fine children-he is a model husband and father, but his heart is so capacious that he has also found accommodation for a huge brute of a Patagonian poodle, and this too in a not by any means capacious establishment. The animal came to him