Ha, ha, ha, now ye will make me to smile,
To see if I can all men beguile.
Ha, my name, my name would ye so fain know?
Yea, I wis, shall ye, and that with all speed.
I have forgot it, therefore I cannot show.
A, a, now I have it! I have it indeed!
My name is Ambidexter, I signify one
That with both hands finely can play.
KING CAMBYSES.
But the question has been mooted in the literary and cerulean circles of the metropolis, whether this book be not the joint work of two or more authors. And this duality or plurality of persons in one authorship has been so confidently maintained, that if it were possible to yield upon such a point to any display of evidence and weight of authority, I must have been argued out of my own indivisible individuality.
Fort bien! Je le soutiens par la grande raison
Qu'ainsi l'a fait des Dieux la puissance suprême;
Et qu'il n'est pas en moi de pouvoir dire non,
Et d'etre un autre que moi-même.1
1 MOLIERE.
Sometimes I have been supposed to be the unknown Beaumont of some equally unknown Fletcher,—the moiety of a Siamese duplicate; or the third part of a Geryonite triplicity; the fourth of a quaternion of partners, or a fifth of a Smectymnuan association. Nay, I know not whether they have not cut me down to the dimensions of a tailor, and dwindled me into the ninth part of an author!
Me to be thus served! me, who am an integral, to be thus split into fractions! me, a poor unit of humanity, to be treated like a polypus under the scissars of an experimental naturalist, or unnaturalist.
The reasons assigned in support of this pluri-personal hypothesis are, first, the supposed discrepancy of humour and taste apparent in the different parts of the book. Oh men ignorant of humorology! more ignorant of psychology! and most ignorant of Pantagruelism!
Secondly, the prodigal expenditure of mottoes and quotations, which they think could only have been supported by means of a pic-nic contribution. Oh men whose diligence is little, whose reading less, and whose sagacity least of all!
Yet looking at this fancy of the Public,—a creature entertained with many fancies, beset with many tormenting spirits, and provided with more than the four legs and two voices which were hastily attributed to the son of Sycorax;—a creature which, though it be the fashion of the times to seek for shelter under its gaberdine, is by this good light, “a very shallow monster,” “a most poor credulous monster!”—I say looking at this fancy of the Public in that temper with which it is my wish to regard every thing, methinks I should be flattered by it, and pleased (if any thing flattering could please me) by having it supposed upon such grounds, that this book, like the Satyre Menippée, is the composition of several bons et gentils esprits du tems,—dans lequel souz paroles et allegations pleines de raillerie, ils boufonnerent, comme en riant le vray se peut dire; and which ils firent, selon leurs humeurs, caprices et intelligences, en telle sorte qu'il se peut dire qu'ils n'ont rien oublié de ce qui se peut dire pour servir de perfection à cet ouvrage, qui bien entendu sera grandement estimé par la posterité.2