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N E W Y O R K : CHARLES SCRIBNER, 145 NASSAU STREET. 1854
Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1854, by CHARLES SCRIBNER, in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York.
TOBITT’S COMBINATION-TYPE, 185 William St.
PRINTED BY R. CRAIGHEAD 63 VESEY STREET, N. Y.
For some remarks that should properly introduce much of the contents of the present volume, the reader is referred to the Preface published with a previous number of the Series, entitled “Pencillings by the Way.” A portion of the original “Pencillings” is here given, the size of the work having compelled an unequal division of it, and the remaining and smaller part serving to complete another volume, with some additional sketches of the same character.
The _personal portrayings of distinguished contemporaries_, of which this volume is mainly composed, will, (as has been abundantly proved in their previous shapes of publication,) ensure its readableness. It will have a value, from the same quality, that will increase with time, and be, also, independent, to a certain degree, of its literary merits. Sketches of the men of mark of any period are eagerly devoured—more eagerly as the subjects pass away, and are beyond farther seeing and describing—the public requiring less that they should be ably done than that they should be _true to the life_. Correctness, in such pencilling, is more important than grace in the art. And this I claim to have been proved for these sketches. In the years that they have been before the public, _not a single incorrectness_ has ever been proved or even charged upon them. I sketched what I saw at the time, and, to the best of my ability, sketched _truly_. With the acrid and persevering warfare that has been waged upon them by the critics, their _truth_ would have been invalidated long ago, if flaw or blemish in this shield of their chief merit could have been found. Expecting vague charges of incorrectness from the malice of criticism, however, I have accumulated testimonials that have never yet been called forth—no friend or acquaintance having ever been estranged or offended by the descriptions I have ventured to give, and subsequent intimacy or exchange of courtesies furnishing ample proof, that, to such sharing of my admiration and opportunities to see more nearly, the world was welcome.