NOTICE. Or the papers contained in this Volume, Chapters I. to XV. are reprinted from the Standard; and Chapters XVII. to XIX. are reprinted from the Scotsman and the Glasgow News. Chapter XVI. is now printed for the first time. TO MY CONSTANT READER. MY DEAR I MUST ever think that I displayed a happy forethought and wise prevision in that I did not commence to scribble until I had first taken steps to provide myself, in you, with at least one Constant Reader. "Come what may," I said to myself, when, five and twenty years ago, I dropped my first effusion into the Letter Box"Come what may, I have at least secured a public, limited, no doubt, but appreciative, and always in harmony with itself and me." You, however, have been much more than a constant reader. How often you have extracted, arranged, and indexed notes-how frequently you have hunted up and verified or corrected quotations-how often compositors have had reason to bless the days |