erse criticism. But their efforts are
vain. They have availed only to advance--from first to last now for some
forty-five years--the world-wide success of "Proverbial Philosophy."

If it is expected, as a matter of impartiality, that I should here print
adverse criticisms as well as those which are favourable, I simply
decline to be so foolish: a caricature impresses where a portrait is
forgotten: the _litera scripta_ in printer's ink remains and is quotable
for ever, and I do not think it worth while deliberately to traduce
myself and my book children by adopting the opinions of dyspeptic
scribes who will find how well I think of them in my Proverbial Essay
"Zoilism;" which, by the way, I read at St. Andrews, before some chiefs
of that university, with A.K.H.B. in the chair.

* * * * *

Accordingly, I prefer now to appear one-sided, as a piece of common
sense; quite indifferent to the charge of vain-gloriousness; all the
good verdicts quoted are genuine, absolutely unpaid and unrewarded, and
are matters of sincere and skilled opinion; so being such I prize them:
the opposing judgments--much fewer, and far less hearty, as "willing to
wound and yet afraid to strike"--may as well perish out of memory by
being ignored and neglected. Here is a social anecdote to illustrate
what I mean. I once knew a foolish young nobleman of the highest rank
who--to spite his younger brother as he fancied--posted him up in his
club for having called him "a maggot;" and all he got for his pains in
this exposure was that the name stuck to himself for life! so it is not
necessary to borrow fame's trumpet to proclaim one's few dispraises.

Moreover, I have thought it only just to the many unseen lovers of
"Proverbial Philosophy" to show them how heartily their good opinions
have been countersigned and sanctioned all over the English-speaking
world by critics of many schools and almost all denominations. It is not
then from personal vanity that so much laudation is exhibited [God wot,
I have reason to denounce and renounce self-seeking]--but rather to
gratify and corroborate innumerable book friends.

* * * * *

If there had been International Copyright in the more halcyon days of my
"Proverbial" popularity, when, as reported (see the _New York World_ on
p. 124), a million and a half copies of my book were consumed in
America, I should have been materially rewarded by a royalty o