AND ECCENTRICITIES. BY JOHN TIMBS, AUTHOR OF "CLUB LIFE OF LONDON," "A CENTURY OF ANECDOTE," ETC. RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET,. Publisher in Ordinary to Her Majesty. 1866. 8456,26 HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY 1873. Jeb. 13 Gift of (Hk. 1852.) LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET, AND CHARING CROSS. 37-202 52 PREFACE. GENTLE READER, a few words before we introduce you to our MODERN ECCENTRICS. They may be odd company: yet, how often do we find eccentricity in the minds of persons of good understanding. Their sayings and doings, it is true, may not rank as high among the delicacies of intellectual epicures as the Strasburg pies among the dishes described in the Almanach des Gourmands; but they possess attractions in proportion to the degree in which " man favours wonders." Swift has remarked, that “ a little grain of the romance is no ill ingredient to preserve and exalt the dignity of human nature, without which it is apt to degenerate into everything that is sordid, vicious, and low." Into the latter extremes Eccentricity is occasionally apt to run, somewhat like certain fermenting liquors which cannot be checked in their acidifying courses. Into such headlong excesses our Eccentrics rarely stray; and one of our objects in sketching their ways, is to show that with oddity of character may co-exist much goodness of heart; and your strange fellow, though, according to the lexicographer, he be outlandish, odd, queer, and eccentric, may possess claims to our notice which the man who is |
