CHAPTER XII.
PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY.
And this may well be a fitting place wherein to record the origin, progress, and after long years the full completion of what is manifestly my chief authorial work in life, "Proverbial Philosophy." To ensure accuracy, and not leave all the details to oftentimes unfaithful memory, I will give a few extracts from "a brief account" of the book, set down in 1838, at the beginning of Volume I.of "My Literary Heirloom," now grown to many volumes, containing newspaper cuttings, anecdotes, and letters and scraps of all sorts relating to my numerous works.
"In the year 1828, when under Mr.Holt's roof at Albury (anno aetatis meae 18), I bethought myself, for the special use and behoof of my cousin Isabella, who seven years after became my wife, that I would transcribe my notions on the holy estate of matrimony; a letter was too light, and a formal essay too heavy, and I didn't care to versify my thoughts, so I resolved to convey them in the manner of Solomon's Proverbs or the 'Wisdom' of Jesus the Son of Sirach: and I did so,--successively, in the Articles first on Marriage, then Love, then Friendship, and fourthly on Education: several other pieces growing afterwards.

Whilst at Albury, my cousin showed some of these to our rector, Hugh M'Neile, who warmly praised them, and recommended their publication; but, regarding them as private and personal, I would not hear of it, and in fact it was nine years before they saw print; thus literally, though I meant it not then, exemplifying the Horatian advice, 'nonumque premantur in annum.' However, one day in August 1838, Mr.Stebbing, whose chapel, in the Hampstead Road I used to attend when living at Gothic Cottage, Regent's Park, in my first years of marriage, visiting me and urging me to write something for the _Athenaeum_, which he was then editing, I was induced to show him these earliest essays; but I declined to _give_ them to him, whereat he was angered; perhaps the rather in that I objected to piecemeal publication, possibly also casting some reproach (as the fashion of the day then was) upon magazine and journalistic literature generally.

That I made an enemy of him was evidenced by a spiteful little notice in the _Athenaeum_ of April 21st (three months after my first series was published) stating that it was 'a book not likely to please beyond the circle of a few minds as eccentric as the author's.' The same false friend excluded me altogether from any notice in the _Examiner_ wherein he had some literary influence." To this day these reviews have been my foes, which I regret.
"Still, Mr.Stebbing did me substantial good; he praised the idea as 'new, because a resuscitation of what was very old,'-- and as of my own origination in these latter days, and as a good vehicle for thoughts on many matters: and he promised his valuable assistance to a young author's fame,--performing as above.

So, after a last interview with him at his house, wherein I conclusively refused him, I wrote my Preface at once, jotting down (as I recollect at the street corner post opposite Hampstead Road Chapel) on the back of an old letter my opening paragraph,-- "'Thoughts that have tarried in my mind, and peopled its inner chambers,' &c., &c.
"In ten weeks from that day I had my first series ready,--supposing it then all I should ever write;--the same assurance of a final end having been my delusion at the close of each of my four series.

My first publisher was Rickerby of Abchurch Lane, who produced a beautifully printed small folio volume with ornamental initials, and now very scarce: it came to a second edition, but brought me no money,--and the third edition failing to sell, it was in great part sent to America; where N.P.Willis finding a copy, fancied the book that of some forgotten author of the Elizabethan era, and quoted it week after week in a periodical of his, _The Home Journal_, as such: years afterwards, when he met me in London, he was scared to find that one whom he had thought dead three hundred years was still alive and juvenile and ruddy.
"It might be thought indelicate in me to quote at length the many pleasant greetings of the press to my first odd volumes; suffice it to say, that the kind critics were with few exceptions unanimous in commendation; and some great names, as Heraud, Leigh Hunt, and St.John particularly favoured me,--the latter prophesying a tenth edition: but I must still condescend to pick out at the end of this paper a few of the plums of praise wherewith my early publication was indulged, if only to please the numerous admirers of my chief 'lifework.' One comfort is that no one of my reviewers all my life through has ever been bought or rewarded.