ost of us are better without. Talbots and Stanleys, St. Maurs, and
such-like folk, have led armies, and made laws time out of mind; but
those noble families would be somewhat astounded--if the accounts ever
came to be fairly taken--to find how small their work for England has
been by the side of that of the Browns.

These latter, indeed, have until the present generation rarely been sung
by poet, or chronicled by sage. They have wanted their "sacer vates,"
having been too solid to rise to the top by themselves, and not having
been largely gifted with the talent of catching hold of, and holding on
tight to, whatever good things happened to be going,--the foundation of
the fortunes of so many noble families. But the world goes on its way,
and the wheel turns, and the wrongs of the Browns, like other wrongs,
seem in a fair way to get righted. And this present writer having for
many years of his life been a devout Brown-worshipper, and moreover
having the honour of being nearly connected with an eminently
respectable branch of the great Brown family, is anxious, so far as in
him lies, to help the wheel over, and throw his stone on to the pile.

However, gentle reader, or simple reader, whichever you may be, lest you
should be led to waste your precious time upon these pages, I make so
bold as at once to tell you the sort of folk you'll have to meet and put
up with, if you and I are to jog on comfortably together. You shall hear
at once what sort of folk the Browns are, at least my branch of them;
and then if you don't like the sort, why, cut the concern at once, and
let you and I cry quits before either of us can grumble at the other.

In the first place, the Browns are a fighting family. One may question
their wisdom, or wit, or beauty, but about their fight there can be no
question. Wherever hard knocks of any kind, visible or invisible, are
going, there the Brown who is nearest must shove in his carcase. And
these carcases for the most part answer very well to the characteristic
propensity; they are a square-headed and snake-necked generation, broad
in the shoulder, deep in the chest and thin in the flank, carrying no
lumber. Then for clanship, they are as bad as Highlanders; it is amazing
the belief they have in one another. With them there is nothing like the
Browns, to the third and fourth generation. "Blood is thicker than
water," is one of their pet sayings. They can't be happy unless they
are always meeting one an