TAKINGS: OR THE LIFE OF A COLLEGIAN. A POEM. ILLUSTRATED BY TWENTY-SIX ETCHINGS, FROM DESIGNS BY R. DAGLEY, AUTHOR OF "SELECT GEMS FROM THE ANTIQUE," "A COMPENDIUM OF THE THEORY "Perhaps it may turn out a Song, LONDON: JOHN WARREN, OLD BOND-STREET, AND G. AND W. B. WHITTAKER, AVE-MARIA LANE. MDCCCXXI. DEDICATION. To the Admirers of those hasty Productions of the Pencil called Sketches. GENTLEMEN, IN offering these subjects to your attention, I feel assured of every allowance on your part for their style of execution; and also that in your comments upon what the generality may call blots or scratches, you will lean to the favourable side, and pronounce them meaning and design. To those who are not gifted with your taste and feeling, I am aware the "Takings," may not appear with all the advantage that I could wish; I must, therefore, request such persons to suspend their judgment till they have acquired that improved perception which finds an intentional grace, where ordinary vision sees only accident or deformity. The eye of the Connoisseur can penetrate the obscurity of redundant lines, separate their entanglements, and distinguish the latent shapes of beauty and vigour. In a scanty performance he can nevertheless discern the excellence which the artist contemplated. Enough for him, if Rembrandt scratched the line, The form was matchless, and the touch divine. R. D. ADVERTISEMENT. 66 GENTLE reader, I have been twisting and turning-" Stop there,” said a friend at my elbow," I never see the term gentle reader,' but it gives me a sneaking idea of the writer. I always fancy he is going to lay a heavy tax upon my patience, and is endeavouring to sooth me into compliance,-besides how can you or he tell to whom this phrase is applied? It is laughable to think to what description of beings this title may be given. Perhaps some boisterous boor, "whose very how-do-ye is a storm," or crabbed female to whom the epithet is only a signal for derision, perhaps to some disappointed author; in short, my dear Sir, any thing but gentle,' if you please.” Well then, reader, should any chance lead you to the perusal of these pages, know, that I have been twisting and turning in my mind how I may manage to give any account of myself or my doings, further than what appears upon the surface of the work, without incurring the charge of presumption and egotism: but it cannot be accomplished, vanity is at the bottom, and when did vanity ever keep there? So, with this confession, I have only to say that nearly twenty years |