Page:Manners and customs of ye Englyshe.djvu/10

YE CONTRIBUTOR HYS PREFACE. wizard of any point of the compaſs, and, it is probable, could be cleverly achieved by no adept inferior to the ingenious.

However, there flouriſhed in a ſomewhat later day a philoſopher, for ſuch he was after his faſhion, a virtuoſo, antiquary, and F.R.S., whoſe ghoſt an inconſiderable perſon may perhaps attempt to raiſe without being accuſed of pretending to be too much of a conjuror. He appears to have been a Peripatetic, at leaſt until he could keep a coach, but on the ſubjects of dreſs, dining, and ſome others, his opinions favour ſtrongly of Epicuriſm. A little more than a hundred and eighty years ago he employed his leiſure in going about everywhere, peeping into everything, feeing all that he could, and chronicling his experiences daily. In his Diary, which happily has come down to our times, the hiſtorical fads are highly valuable, the comments moſtly ſenſible, the ſtyle is very odd, and the autobiography extremely ludicrous. I have adventured reverently to evoke this worſhipful gentleman, that, renaming his old vocation as a journaliſt, he might comment on the "Manners and Cvſtoms of ye Englyſhe in 1849," in the name of. I hope his ſhadow, if not his ſpirit, may be recogniſed in the following pages. PERCIVAL LEIGH.
 * December 12, 1849.
 * December 12, 1849.