“A lady, resident in Devonshire, going into one of her parlors, discovereda young ass, who had found his way into the room, and carefullyclosed the door upon himself. He had evidently not been long in this situationbefore he had nibbled a part of Cicero’s Orations, and eatennearly all the index of a folio edition of Seneca in Latin, a large partof a volume of La Bruyère’s Maxims in French, and several pages ofCecilia. He had done no other mischief whatever, and not a vestige remainedof the leaves that he had devoured.”—Pierce Egan.
“The treatment of the illustrious dead by the quick, often reminds meof the gravedigger in Hamlet, and the skull of poor defunct Yorick.”—W.H. B.
“Multi ad sapientiam pervenire potuissent, nisi se jam pervenisseputassent.”
“There’s nothing so amusing as human nature, but then you must havesome one to laugh with.”
NOTE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION.
The author of “Rab and his Friends” scarcely needs anintroduction to American readers. By this time manyhave learned to agree with a writer in the “North British Review”that “Rab” is, all things considered, the most perfectprose narrative since Lamb’s “Rosamond Gray.”
A new world of doctors, clergymen, shepherds, and carriersis revealed in the writings of this cheerful Edinburgh scholar,who always brings genuine human feeling, strong sense, andfine genius to the composition of his papers. Dogs he loveswith an enthusiasm to be found nowhere else in canine literature.He knows intimately all a cur means when he winks hiseye or wags his tail, so that the whole barking race,—terrier,mastiff, spaniel, and the rest,—finds in him an affectionate andinterested friend. His genial motto seems to run thus—“Icannot understand that morality which excludes animals fromhuman sympathy, or releases man from the debt and obligationhe owes to them.”
With the author’s consent we have rejected from his twoseries of “Horæ Subsecivæ” the articles on strictly professionalsubjects, and have collected into this volume the rest of his admirablepapers in that work. The title, “Spare Hours,” isalso adopted with the author’s sanction.
Dr. Brown is an eminent practising physician in Edinburgh,with small leisure for literary composition, but no one hasstronger claims to be ranked among the purest and best writersof our day.
Boston...