found, that, in 1793, when my work commences, he was just breeched, that seven years afterwards he entered the British navy, and that, at the battle of Algiers, in August, 1816, he had been not quite eight years a lieutenant. I may add, that, although many a boatswain's name does, the name of the "officer of rank" does not, appear in these pages.

The "officer of rank" made his virulent attack upon me a full twelvemonth after I had announced a new and improved edition as being in the press; but as regarded him, I staid my "corrective" pen, the moment I discovered that a new edition of the "Naval Sketch-book" was about to appear. I have seen it; and find that, as far as relates to me, the new work is a reprint of the old. I am therefore at liberty to proceed in "showing up" the "officer of rank." Will it be credited of a writer, who declares that he never presumes to give an opinion of a work until he has read it with attention, that he actually fathers upon me a "maxim," which I quote from another, for the express purpose of showing its objectionable tendency ? Let the reader turn to p. 105 of the first volume of the "officer of rank's" book, and then to the passage at p. vi of this Preface, beginning, " But even, &c."; which is a transcript of what appeared in my former edition. In another place, the "officer of rank" is disposed to be facetious with me, and that about a circumstance, which every British naval officer, possessed of feelings a little more refined than would fit him for excelling in a "galley story," must wish had never happened. But, has not the "officer of rank" himself, in one alteration made by him, afforded a practical proof, that the threat of correction sometimes operates as beneficially as the actual infliction of it ? The reader is requested to compare a sentence at the top of p. 174, vol. i., of the old, with a sentence at the top of p. 208, vol. i., of the new, edition of the " Naval Sketch-book." Nor is "Lyon;'' if it be so at all, the only name that will bear to be punned upon. "People," says the proverb, "who live in GLASS houses, should beware of throwing stones." - Pray, reader, do not, like this. writer, condemn me without looking at the ERRATA ; * and