ere I pause, dear Reader.

An idea has just come to my head, and for fear it might be lonely there, I will impart it to you without delay.

Now, to come at once to the sense of the matter, will you allow me for once—for once only—to pay myself a compliment that I think I well deserve? It is the word "Ireland," which I have just written in the preceding chapter, that makes me think of addressing sincere congratulations to myself. Forgive me for this little digression, it will relieve me.

I have written two books on England, a third on the relations between England and France, and I shall soon have finished a volume of recollections of Scotland.

How many times I have had to write the words "England" and "Ireland," I could not say; but I affirm that I have not once—no, not once—spoken of "Perfidious Albion" or the "Emerald Isle."

"Indeed!" and "What of that?" you will perhaps exclaim.

Well, whatever you may say, I assure you that if ever a man had a right to feel proud of himself, I have.

More than once have I been tempted, once or twice I have had to make an erasure, but I am the first who has triumphed over the difficulty.

Come, dear Critic, if thou wilt be amiable, here is an occasion. Admit that a Frenchman, who can write fourteen or fifteen hundred pages on the subject of England, without once calling her "Perfidious Albion," is a man who is entitled to thy respect and thy indulgence for the thousand and one shortcomings of which he knows himself to be guilty.

There, I feel better now. Let us now go and see Donald's big touns.