“DEDICATION.

“TO THE FRIENDLY AND JUDICIOUS READER, who will take these Papers, as they were meant; not understanding every thing perversely in its absolute and literal sense, but giving fair construction, as to an after-dinner conversation; allowing for the rashness and necessary incompleteness of first thoughts; and not remembering, for the purpose of an after taunt, words spoken peradventure after the fourth glass, the Author wishes (what he would will for himself) plenty of good friends to stand by him, good books to solace him, prosperous events to all his honest undertakings, and a candid interpretation to his most hasty words and actions.  The other sort (and he hopes many of them will purchase his book too) he greets with the curt invitation of Timon, ‘Uncover, dogs, and lap:’  or he dismisses them with the confident security of the philosopher,—­’you beat but on the case of Elia.’

    “On better consideration, pray omit that Dedication.  The Essays
    want no Preface:  they are all Preface.  A Preface is nothing but
    a talk with the reader; and they do nothing else.  Pray omit it.

    “There will be a sort of Preface in the next Magazine, which may
    act as an advertisement, but not proper for the volume.

    “Let ELIA come forth bare as he was born.

    “C.L.

    “N.B.—­No Preface.”

The “sort of Preface in the next number” was the character sketch of the late Elia on page 171.

Elia did not reach a second edition in Lamb’s lifetime—­that is to say, during a period of twelve years—­although the editions into which it has passed between his death and the present day are legion.  Why, considering the popularity of the essays as they appeared in the London Magazine, the book should have found so few purchasers is a problem difficult of solution.  Lamb himself seems to have attributed some of the cause to Southey’s objection, in the Quarterly Review, that Elia “wanted a sounder religious feeling;” but more probably the book was too dear:  it was published at 9s. 6d.

Ordinary reviewers do not seem to have perceived at all that a rare humorist, humanist and master of prose had arisen, although among the finer intellects who had any inclination to search for excellence for excellence’s sake Lamb made his way.  William Hazlitt, for example, drew attention to the rich quality of Elia; as also did Leigh Hunt; and William Hone, who cannot, however, as a critic be mentioned with these, was tireless in advocating the book.  Among strangers to Lamb who from the first extolled his genius was Miss Mitford.  But Elia did not sell.