Human Error, Vols. I. and II., quarto,
with illustrations,"--the "Anti-Bookseller Society," I say, that had
hitherto evinced nascent and budding life by these exfoliations from its
slender stem, died of a sudden blight the moment its sun, in the shape
of Uncle Jack, set in the Cimmerian regions of the Fleet; and a polite
letter from another printer (O William Caxton, William Caxton, fatal
progenitor!) informing my father of this event, stated complimentarily
that it was to him, "as the most respectable member of the Association,"
that the said printer would be compelled to look for expenses incurred,
not only in the very costly edition of the "History of Human Error," but
for those incurred in the print and paper devoted to "Poems," "Dramas
not intended for the Stage," "Essays by Phileutheros, Philanthropos,
Philopolis, Philodemus, and Philalethes," with sundry other works, no
doubt of a very valuable nature, but in which a considerable loss, in a
pecuniary point of view, must be necessarily expected.

I own that as soon as I had mastered the above agreeable facts, and
ascertained from Mr. Squills that my father really did seem to have
rendered himself legally liable to these demands, I leaned back in my
chair stunned and bewildered.

"So you see," said my father, "that as yet we are contending with
monsters in the dark,--in the dark all monsters look larger and uglier.
Even Augustus Caesar, though certainly he had never scrupled to make
as many ghosts as suited his convenience, did not like the chance of a
visit from them, and never sat alone in tenebris. What the amount of the
sums claimed from me may be, we know not; what may be gained from the
other shareholders is equally obscure and undefined. But the first thing
to do is to get poor Jack out of prison."

"Uncle Jack out of prison!" exclaimed I. "Surely, sir, that is carrying
forgiveness too far."

"Why, he would not have been in prison if I had not been so blindly
forgetful of his weakness, poor man! I ought to have known better. But
my vanity misled me; I must needs publish a great book, as if [said Mr.
Caxton, looking round the shelves] there were not great books enough
in the world! I must needs, too, think of advancing and circulating
knowledge in the form of a journal,--I, who had not knowledge enough of
the character of my own brother-in-law to keep myself from ruin! Come
what--will, I should think myself the meanest of men to let that poor
creature, w