Page:A Selection of Original Songs, Scraps, Etc., by Ned Farmer (3rd ed.).djvu/14

 for it. I had a4ot of pieces of one kind or other stowed away, and lying about in drawers, cupboards, and boxes, and it was quite a certainty that if I did not publish them, no one else ever would; and it just became a question with me, whether I should bum them or print them. I decided on the latter course, and hinc illæ lachrymæ.

This also did I take into account: that having, miserable varlet as I am, no fond and devoted wife to be pained by the eccentricities of her husband—no loving children (the more of misery mine) to be taunted with their father's follies—I decided upon the present course of action; and, as a friend of mine would say, "I've been and gone and done it!"

Had I more of time than my present avocation allows me, I am free to confess that I would have endeavoured to have licked into somewhat better shape these rough and uncouth "bear cubs" of my brain. True it is, that more than one kindly-disposed individual has volunteered to parse and otherwise alter and amend the varied contents of my book; but such offers I have ever declined firmly, yet, I trust, respectfully: for had I permitted such alterations as doubtless better taste and higher learning had suggested, the book would have ceased to have been my production, and would have been written by that well-known and highly respected firm of "Me, Somebodyelse & Co." As it is, I can, if not proudly, at least very truthfully, assert that—"alone I did it;" and I am, furthermore, fully justified in asserting that not one word is translated from.

It is perhaps due to myself, to observe that each and every portion of the Scrap Book grew out of some "strong and