"Watch little providences: if indeed Or less there be, or greater, in the sight Of Him who governs all by day and night, And sees the forest hidden in the seed: Of all that happens take thou reverent heed, For seen in true Religion's happier light (Though not unknown of Reason's placid creed) All things are ordered; all by orbits move, Having precursors, satellites, and signs, Whereby the mind not doubtfully divines What is the will of Him who rules above, And takes for guidance those paternal hints That all is well, that thou art led by Love, And in thy travel trackest old footprints."
And this may well be a fitting place wherein to record the origin, progress, and after long years the full completion of what is manifestly my chief authorial work in life, "Proverbial Philosophy." To ensure accuracy, and not leave all the details to oftentimes unfaithful memory, I will give a few extracts from "a brief account" of the book, set down in 1838, at the beginning of Volume I. of "My Literary Heirloom," now grown to many volumes, containing newspaper cuttings, anecdotes, and letters and scraps of all sorts relating to my numerous works.
"In the year 1828, when under Mr. Holt's roof at Albury (anno ætatis meæ 18), I bethought myself, for the special use and behoof of my cousin Isabella, who seven years after became my wife, that I would transcribe my notions on the holy estate of matrimony; a letter was too light, and a formal essay too heavy, and I didn't care to versify my thoughts, so I resolved to convey them in the manner of Solomon's Proverbs or the 'Wisdom' of Jesus the Son of Sirach: and I did so,--successively, in the Articles first on Marriage, then Love, then Friendship, and fourthly on Education: several other pieces growing afterwards. Whilst at Albury, my cousin showed some of these to our rector, Hugh M'Neile, who warmly praised them, and recommended their publication; but, regarding them as private and personal, I would not hear of it, and in fact it was nine years before they saw print; thus literally, though I meant it not then, exemplifying the Horatian advice, 'nonumque premantur in annum.' However, one day in August 1838, Mr. Stebbing, whose chapel, in the Hampstead Road I used to attend when living at Gothic Cottage, Regent's Park, in my first years of marriage, visiting me and urging me to write something for the _Athenæum_, which he was then editing, I was induced to show him these earliest essays; but I declined to _give_ them to him, whereat he was angered; perhaps the rather in that I objected to piecemeal publication, possibly also casting some reproach (as the fashion of the day then was) upon magazine and journalistic literature generally. That I made an enemy of him was evidenced by a spiteful little notice in the _Athenæum_ of April 21st (three months after my first series was published) stating that it was 'a book not likely to please beyond the circle of a few minds as eccentric as the author's.' The same false friend excluded me altogether from any notice in the _Examiner_ wherein he had some literary influence." To this day these reviews have been my foes, which I regret.