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RAB AND HIS FRIENDS AND OTHER PAPERS

By John Brown, M.D., F.R.S.E.

"_Ce fagotage de tant si diverses pieces, se faict en cette condition: que je n'y mets la main, que lors qu'une trop lasche oysisvete vie presse_--michel de Montaigne.

Artist's Edition. With Numerous New Illustrations By Jessie Shepherd And William A. Mccullough

New York Frederick A. Stokes Company Publishers

1903

[Illustration: 0008]

[Illustration: 0008]

"The treatment of the illustrious dead by the quick, often reminds me of the gravedigger in Hamlet, and the skull of poor defunct Yorick."--w.h.b.

"Multi ad sapientiam pervenire potuissent, nisi se jam pervenisse putassent."

"There's nothing so amusing as human nature, but then you must have some one to laugh with."--C. S. B.

"Fear is more pain than is the pain it fears."--Sir P. Sidney.

$PREFACE.

"Squeeze out the whey," was the pithy and sharp advice of his crusty, acute, faithful, and ill-fated friend, William Taylor of Norwich, author of English Synonyms, to Southey, when that complacent and indefatigable poet and literary man of all work sent him the MSS. of his huge quartos. It would perhaps have been better for his fame had the author of _Thalaba, Don Roderick, and The Curse of Kehama_ taken the gruff advice.

I am going to squeeze my two volumes into one, keeping it a profound secret as to what I regard as whey and what curd; only I believe the more professional papers, as _Locke and Sydenham,