I believe the old Italian proverb says, that every man, before he dies, should do three things: "Get a son, build a house, and write a book. " Now, whether or not I am desirous, by beginning at the end, to end at the beginning of this quaint axiom, I leave the reader to conjecture. My book may afford amusement to him who will smile when I am glad, and sympathise with the impressions I have caught in other moods of mind, but I have little affinity of feeling, and less companionship with him who expects to see pictures of life coloured differently from those I have beheld.