The last anecdote I shall now inflict upon my reader in this connection is as follows:—­

One James Orton, an American gentleman whom I have never seen that I know of (unless by possibility in some one of the crowds met anonymously, before whom I may have read in public) was kind enough many years ago to publish a beautifully printed and illustrated volume “The Proverbialist and the Poet,” whereof he sent me two copies; but lacking his address, probably with the delicate object of preventing an acknowledgment; and I am almost ashamed to state that his whole book in different inks combines the threefold wisdoms of King Solomon, William Shakespeare, and Martin Tupper; the title-page being decorated in colours with views of the Temple, Stratford-on-Avon, and Albury House!  If I ventured to quote the Preface, it would beat even this as the climax of fulsome flattery, and I think that my friends of the Comic Press who have done me so much service by keeping up my shuttlecock with their battledores, and so much honour by placing me prominently among the defamed worthies of the world, would in their charity (for they have some) pity the victim of such excruciating praise, if he failed hereby to repudiate it.

Not but that poor human nature delights in adulation.  I well remember the joy wherewith I first greeted the following from a Cincinnati paper; so hearty too, and generous, and obviously sincere.

“The author of this book will rank, we are free to say, with the very first spirits of the British world.  It will live, in our judgment, as long as the English language, and be a text-book of wisdom to the young of all generations of America and England both.  We would rather be the author of it, than hold any civil or ecclesiastical office in the globe.  We would rather leave it as a legacy to our children, than the richest estate ever owned by man.  From our heart we thank the young author for this precious gift, and, could our voice reach him, would pronounce a shower of heartfelt blessings on his soul.  When we began to read it with our editorial pencil in hand, we undertook to mark its beautiful passages, should we find any worthy of distinction; but, having read to our satisfaction—­indeed to our amazement—­we throw down the pencil, and, had we as much space as admiration, we would quote the whole of it.  It is one solid, sparkling, priceless gem.”

I may as well add a few more such extracts, as strictly within the text of “My Lifework.”

“The author of ‘Proverbial Philosophy’ is a writer in whom beautiful extremes meet,—­the richness of the Orient, and the strength of the Occident—­the stern virtue of the North and the passion of the South.  At times his genius seems to possess creative power, and to open to our gaze things new and glorious, of which we have never dreamed; then again it seems like sunlight, its province not to create, but to vivify and glorify what before was within and around us.