



Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Janet Blenkinship and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net











AN AUTHOR'S MIND;

THE BOOK OF TITLE-PAGES:


"A BOOKFUL OF BOOKS," OR "THIRTY BOOKS IN ONE."


EDITED BY

M.F. TUPPER, ESQ., M. A.


"En un mot, mes amis, je n'ai entrepris de vous contenter tous en
general; ainsi, une et autres en particulier; et par special,
moymeme."--PASQUIER.


  HARTFORD:
  PUBLISHED BY SILAS ANDRUS & SON.
  1851.




ANNOUNCEMENT.

BY THE EDITOR.


The writer of this strange book (a particular friend of mine) came to me
a few mornings ago with a very happy face and a very blotty manuscript.
"Congratulate me," he began, "on having dispersed an armada of
head-aches hitherto invincible, on having exorcised my brain of its
legionary spectres, and brushed away the swarming thoughts that used to
persecute my solitude; I can now lie down as calmly as the lamb, and
rise as gayly as the lark; instead of a writhing Laocoon, my just-found
Harlequin's wand has changed me into infant Hercules brandishing his
strangled snakes; I have mowed, for the nonce, the docks, mallows,
hogweed, and wild-parsley of my rank field, and its smooth green carpet
looks like a rich meadow; I am free, happy, well at ease: argal, an thou
lovest me, congratulate."

Wider and wider still stared out my wonder, to hear my usually sober
friend so voluble in words and so profuse of images: I saw at once it
was a set speech, prepared for an impromptu occasion; nevertheless, as
he was clearly in an enviable state of disenthraldom from
thoughtfulness, I graciously accorded him a sympathetic smile. And then
this more than Gregorian cure for the head-ache! here was an anodyne
infinitely precious to one so brain-feverish as I: had all this pleasure
and comfort arisen from such common-place remedials as a dear young
lover's courtesy or a deceased old miser's codicil, I should long ago
have heard all about it; for, between ourselves, my friend was never
known to keep a secret. There was evidently more than this in the
discovery; and when my curiosity, provoked by his laughing silence, was
naturally enough exhibiting itself in a "What on earth----?" he broke
out with the abruptness of an Abernethy, "Read