"I have here only made a Nosegay of culled Flowers, and have LONDON: PUBLISHED BY W. SIMPKIN AND R. MARSHALL, Advertisement. EVERY practised reader can give a shrewd guess at the contents of a book from its external appearance. No lady of common experience in such matters would look for a novel in the rolled bands and Russian skin of a splay-footed folio: nor on the other hand, would any grave antiquarian expect to find an essay on Henry the Seventh's chapel, lurking in blue boards and puny dimensions of a duodecimo. Every work has its peculiar costume, from the beau poetry, who comes tricked out in all sorts of finery, to the book of common prayer, who is for the most part clad in sober black as the emblem of his profession; sometimes, indeed, he appears in a red morocco coat with a gold band about his neck, but this is a strange violation of decorum, and is well worthy of reprehension. Upon this principle, therefore, I hope the purchasers of my present work will clothe it in calf-skin, a sort of modest habit that may best pourtray its pretensions. Much also is to be learnt from the title of a work, though now and then a hungry wight of an author, whose appetite |