I suppose, designates a party formed out of the moderate men of both
sides, or rather, composed of Low-toned Tories and High Whigs. I do not
like to express a decided opinion yet, but my first impression is always
adverse to mixtures, for a mixture renders impure the elements of which
it is compounded. Every thing will depend on the preponderance of the
wholesome over the deleterious ingredients. I will analyse it carefully.
See how one neutralizes or improves the other, and what the effect of
the compound is likely to be on the constitution. I will request our
Ambassador, Everett, or Sam's friend, the Minister Extraordinary,
Abednego Layman, to introduce me to Sir Robert Peel, and will endeavour
to obtain all possible information from the best possible source.

"On your return I will give you a candid and deliberate opinion."

After a silence of some minutes, during which he walked up and down
the room in a fit of abstraction, he suddenly paused, and said, as if
thinking aloud--

"Hem, hem--so you are going to cross the border, eh? That northern
intellect is strong. Able men the Scotch, a little too radical in
politics, and a little too liberal, as it is called, in a matter of much
greater consequence; but a superior people, on the whole. They will give
you a warm reception, will the Scotch. Your name will insure that; and
they are clannish; and another warm reception will, I assure you, await
you here, when, returning, you again _Cross the Border_."

CHAPTER XV. THE IRISH PREFACE.

Gentle reader,

If an Irishman were asked what a preface was, he would, without
hesitation reply, that it was the last chapter of a book, and we should
unquestionably pronounce that answer to be a bull; for how can prefatory
remarks be valedictory ones? A few moments' consideration, however,
would induce us to withdraw such a hasty opinion, and convince us that
his idea is, after all, a correct one. It is almost always the part
that is last written, and _we_ perpetrate the bull, by placing it at the
beginning instead of the end of the book, and denominating our parting
words introductory remarks.

The result of our arrangement is, that nobody reads it. The public do
not want to hear an apology or explanation, until it first ascertains,
whether the one can be accepted, or the other is required. This
contemptuous neglect arises from two causes, first because it is out
of place, and secondly because it too often contains a great