From the Original Painting in the possession of Sam! Ward Bisq

FOR MDCCCXXIX.

-There's magic in the web of it.-
Make it a darling like your precious eye :
To lose or give't away were such perdition
As nothing else can match.-Othello.

ELAM BLISS, BROADWAY, NEW-YORK.

MDCCCXXVIII.

Ah 345.25

HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY
FROM

THE BEQUEST OF

EVERT JANSEN WENDELL

1918

Southern District of New-York, ss.

BE IT REMEMBERED, That on the sixth day of December, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and twenty-eight, and in the fifty-third year of the Independence of the United States of America, Elam Bliss, of the said District, has deposited in this office the title of a hook, the right whereof he claims as proprietor, in the words following, to wit:

"The Talisman for MDCCCXXIX.

-There's magic in the web of it.

Make it a darling, like your precious eye;
To lose or give't away were such perdition
As nothing else can match.-Othello.

In conformity to the Act of Congress of the United States, en-
titled, "An Act for the encouragement of Learning, by securing
the copies of Maps, Charts, and Books, to the authors and propri-
etors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned." And
also to an Act, entitled "An Act supplementary to an Act, en-
titled an Act for the encouragement of Learning, by securing the
copies of Maps, Charts and Books to the authors and proprietors
of such copies, during the times therein mentioned, and extending
the benefit thereof to the arts of designing, engraving, and etching
historical and other prints."

FRED. J. BETTS,

Clerk of the Southern District of New-York.

J. SEYMOUR,
PRINTER, JOHN-STREET.

22.26

50

PREFACE.

WHEN I committed to the press, last year, a miscellaneous selection from my unpublished writings, I had no idea of commencing a series of volumes, to appear annually in the same form. Nor is it my present purpose to present myself periodically before the public. But I have been induced, from several considerations, to prepare for the press another volume, of the same form with its predecessor. I will not deny that the flattering reception given to the first, both by the people and the critics, has had its influence upon me; although, as I remarked in my first preface, I have been thought too careless about literary fame.

One thing, I confess, has excited my astonishment; so far forth, at least, as one who has seen much of the world, and practically imbibed the nil-admirari philosophy, can be surprised at any thing. I allude to the rash conjectures, made by some extremely clever reviewers, as to the fact of my existence; nay, who have insinuated doubts as to my being a living person-ascribed my effusions to several individuals-treated me as a mere man of straw-and actually advertised me in their index, as " Mr. Herbert, the fictitious author of The Talisman." I certainly have had the evidence of my own senses, for a longer term of years than I care to mention, as to my own identity; and there are numbers of my friends who have seen me, touched me, talked with me, and ate and drank with me. They can certify that I perform the functions of a thinking, feeling, laughing and cooking animal. I have a dog, too-like the little woman in the nursery rhyme-" and he knows me."

I will not venture a supposition that some of the individuals whom I had before suffered to