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a deliberate omission for a careless forgetfulness, whether those good friends of his, amiable and welcome enough at the dinner-table, are the companions he would choose for his most wearisome hours or for the bedside of his sick child. And if in these pages another should find that which neither amuses nor diverts his mind, that which seems to him to miss the magic and to lack the charm of happiness, let him pass on, with as much charity as he can spare for the anthologist, remembering the proverb of Terence and counting himself an infinitely happier man for this clear proof of his superior judgment.

      I wished to include in this book, from the literature of other countries, such gentle, whimsical humour as one finds in the letters of FitzGerald or the Essays of Lamb. But, with all my searching I could find nothing of that kind, and judges whom I can trust assure me that no other literature has the exquisite note of happiness which sounds through English letters so quietly, so cheerfully, and so contentedly. Therefore my Bed-Book is almost entirely an English Bed-Book, for I liked not the biting acid of Voltaire's epigrams any more than the rollicking and disgustful coarseness of Boccaccio or Rabelais. It is an interesting reflection, if it be true, that English literature is par excellence the literature of Happiness.

      "He who puts forth one depressing thought," says Lady Rachel Howard, "aids Satan in his work of torment. He who puts forth one cheering thought aids God in His work of beneficence." I have acted in the faith that life is essentially good, that the universe presents to the natural intuition of man a bright and glorious expression of Divine happiness, that to be fruitful, as George Sand has it, life must be felt as a blessing. One of the characters in a novel by Dostöevsky says, "Men are made for happiness, and any one who is completely happy has a right to say to himself, 'I am doing God's will on earth.' All the righteous, all the saints, all the holy martyrs were happy."

      Happiness, in its truest and only lasting sense, is the condition of a soul at unity with itself and in harmony with existence. To bring the sick and the sad and the unhappy at least some way on the road to this blissful state, is the purpose of my book; and it leaves me on its travel round the world with the wish that to whatever bedside of sickness, suffering, and lethargy it may come, it may bring with it the magic and contagious joy of those rare and gracious people whose longed-for visits to an invalid are like draughts of rejoicing health. I hope that my fine covers may soon be worn to the comfort of an old garment, that my new pages may be quickly shabbied to the endearment of a familiar face, and that the book will live at bedsides deepening and sweetening the reader's affection for its faded leaves till it come to seem an old, faithful, and never-failing friend, one who is never at fault and never a deserter, and without whom life would lose one of its fondest companionships.

      DAUDET, ALPHONSE:

      Tartarin de Tarascon 176

      DICKENS, CHARLES:

       Shy Neighbourhoods 70

       The Calais Night-boat 200

       Mr. Testator 329

      DOBSON, AUSTIN:

       The Secrets of the Heart 34

       To "Lydia Languish" 137

       The Cap that Fits 240

       A Garden Idyll 286

       Love in Winter 353

       From the Ballad à-la-Mode 417

      FITZGERALD, EDWARD:

       Letters of Fitz 127

      GASKELL, MRS.:

       Cranford 291

      GRONOW, CAPTAIN:

       Sir John Waters 47

       Lord Westmoreland 51

       Colonel Kelly and his Blacking 52

       John Kemble 53

       Rogers and Luttrell 54

       The Pig-faced Lady 57

       Hoby, the Bootmaker, of St. James's Street 58

       Harrington House and Lord Petersham 60

       Lord Alvanley 61

       Sally Lunn 66

       "Monk" Lewis 67

      HAYDON, B.R.:

       Haydon's Immortal Night 181

      H.B.:

       Miss Stipp of Plover's Court 385

       Two Old Gentlemen 424

      HAZLITT:

       Persons one would wish to have seen 180

       Hobson's Choice 279

       Wit and Laughter 351

      HOLE, DEAN:

       "The Vulgar Tongue" 146

       The Happy Dean 249

      HOOD:

       The Carelesse Nurse Mayd 69

       "Please to Ring the Belle" 248

       Sally Simpkin's Lament; or John Jones's

       Kit-cat-astrophe 307

       "Love, with a Witness!" 328

       Ode to Peace 404

      INGOLDSBY:

       Hints for an Historical Play; to be called

       William Rufus; or, the Red Rover 122

       The Tragedy 214

       New-made Honour 312

      J.B.:

       Elia's Tail 192

      JOHNSON, SAMUEL:

       Music 402

       Neatness in Excess 402

       A Young Lady's "Needs" 403

       "Irene" 403

      JONSON, BEN:

       The Woodcraft of Jonson 253

      KEATS:

       To his Brother 186

      LAMB, CHARLES:

       "Sixpenny Jokes" 185

       Lamb's Task 186

       In a Coach 197

      LANDOR, WALTER SAVAGE:

       Landorisms 350

      LEIGH, HENRY S.:

       Where—and oh! Where? 33

       The Answer of Lady Clara Vere de Vere 252

      LEWES, G.H.:

       Goethe's Mother 28

      MACAULAY, LORD:

       "Boswell and Johnson" 102

       Macaulay's Wit 290

      MERIVALE, CHARLES:

       From the Greek Anthology 313

      MONTAIGNE:

       Odours and Moustaches 415

      PERCY ANECDOTES:

       The Great Condé 2

       A Classical Ass 3

       Memory 4

       "Come in Here" 4

       A Pope Innocent 5

       A Good Paraphrase 5

       Irish Priest 6

       A Digression 7

       Fortune-teller 7

       Gasconades 8

       Tribute to Beauty 8

       Begging Quarter 9

       Gascon Reproved 9

       Absent Man 11

       Pride 12

       Witty Coward 12

       Valuing Beauty 12

       Pro Aris et Focis 14

      PRIOR, MATTHEW:

       Epigrams 345

      RELIGIO MEDICI:

       The

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