iters have a wider audience in America than in
England. So too has Mr. Tupper. The imagination staggers in attempting
to realise the number of copies of his works which have been published
abroad. Unlike most of his contemporaries, further, he has conquered
popularity in both hemispheres. He has won the suffrages of two great
nations. He may now disregard criticism."--_Daily News_.

* * * * *

This sonnet, written and published in 1837, nearly half a century ago,
explains itself and may fairly come in here as a protest and prophecy by
a then young author. And, _nota bene_, if hyper-criticism objects that
a sonnet must always be a fourteen-liner (this being one only of twelve)
I reply that it is sometimes of sixteen, as in the one by Dante to
Madonna, which I have translated in my "Modern Pyramid:" and there are
instances of twelve, as one at least of Shakespeare's in his Passionate
Pilgrim. But this is a small technicality.

_To my Book "Proverbial Philosophy," before Publication._

"My soul's own son, dear image of my mind,
I would not without blessing send thee forth
Into the bleak wide world, whose voice unkind
Perchance will mock at thee as nothing worth;
For the cold critic's jealous eye may find
In all thy purposed good little but ill,
May taunt thy simple garb as quaintly wrought,
And praise thee for no more than the small skill
Of masquing as thine own another's thought:
What then? count envious sneers as less than nought:
Fair is thine aim,--and having done thy best,
So, thus I bless thee; yea, thou shalt be blest!"

There were also two others afterward, in the jubilate vein; but I spare
my reader, albeit they are curiously prophetic of the wide good-doing
since accomplished.

To the above numerous commendations which indeed might be indefinitely
extended, it is only fair to add that "Proverbial Philosophy" has run
the gauntlet of both hemispheres also in the way of parody, ridicule,
plagiaristic imitation, and in some instances of envious and malignant
condemnation. It has won on each side both praise from the good and
censure from the bad: our comic papers have amused us with its
travesties--as Church Liturgies and Holy Writ have been similarly
parodied,--and some of the modern writers who are unfriendly to
Christian influences have done their small endeavour to damage both the
book and its author through adv