It is customary for an author, upon launching his "frail bark," to jump up in the bow and make quite a bow-wow about it.<br><br>My bow shall be hasty and my speech curt. A few of the succeeding chapters have already appeared in some of the leading periodicals of the day, but as they were intimately connected w4th, and indispensably necessary to my story, I was forced to re-write and introduce them here. Should, therefore, any reader of the "Whig," or the "Democratic Review," or the "Literary World," or the "Spirit of the Times," find among these pages something that may remind him of an old acquaintance, let him not accuse the author of plagiarism, or indeed of any other literary crime, except perhaps that of occasionally picking his own pockets - an excusable offence in one who has drunk of the Sabine waters; for a singular but veracious account of whose miraculous effects, please examine the "Introduction."<br><br>The author trusts that no apology will be necessary for introducing the two papers at the close of the volume, as they are perfectly germane to the subject.