PREFACE.
The Bag, from which the following Letters are selected, was dropped by a
Twopenny Postman about two months since, and picked up by an emissary of
the Society for the Suppression of Vice, who supposing it might materially
assist the private researches of that Institution, immediately took it to
his employers and was rewarded handsomely for his trouble. Such a treasury
of secrets was worth a whole host of informers; and, accordingly, like the
Cupids of the poet (if I may use so profane a simile) who "fell at odds
about the sweet-bag of a bee,"[1] those venerable Suppressors almost
fought with each other for the honor and delight of first ransacking the
Post-Bag. Unluckily, however, it turned out upon examination that the
discoveries of profligacy which it enabled them to make, lay chiefly in
those upper regions of society which their well-bred regulations forbid
them to molest or meddle with.--In consequence they gained but very few
victims by their prize, and after lying for a week or two under Mr.
Hatchard's counter the Bag with its violated contents was sold for a
trifle to a friend of mine.
It happened that I had been just then seized with an ambition (having
never tried the strength of my wing but in a Newspaper) to publish
something or other in the shape of a Book; and it occurred to me that, the
present being such a letter-writing era, a few of these Twopenny-Post
Epistles turned into easy verse would be as light and popular a task as I
could possibly select for a commencement.
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