Lest there should be any well-intentioned persons who do not perceive the difference (as some such could not, when Old Mortality was newly published), between religion and the cant of religion, piety and the pretence of piety, a humble reverence for the great truths of Scripture and an audacious and offensive obtrusion of its letter and not its spirit in the commonest dissensions and meanest affairs of life, to the extraordinary confusion of ignorant minds, let them understand that it is always the latter, and never the former, which is satirised here. Further, that the latter is here satirised as being, according to all experience, inconsistent with the former, impossible of union with it, and one of the most evil and mischievous falsehoods existent in society- whether it establish its head-quarters, for the time being, in Exeter Hall, or Ebenezer Chapel, or both. It may appear unnecessary to offer a word of observation on so plain a head. But it is never out of season to protest against that coarse familiarity with sacred things which is busy on the lip, and idle in the heart; or against the confounding of Christianity with any class of persons who, in the words of Swift, have just enough religion to make them hate, and not enough to make them love, one another.

I have found it curious and interesting, looking over the sheets of this reprint, to mark what important social improvements have taken place about us, almost imperceptibly, since they were originally written. The licence of Council, and the degree to which Juries are ingeniously bewildered, are yet susceptible of moderation; while an improvement in the mode of conducting Parliamentary Elections (and even Parliaments too, perhaps) is still within the bounds of possibility. But legal reforms have pared the claws of Messrs. Dodson and Fogg; a spirit of self-respect, mutual forbearance, education, and co-operation for such good ends, has diffused itself among their clerks; places far apart are brought together, to the present convenience and advantage of the Public, and to the certain destruction, in time, of a host of petty jealousies, blindnesses, and prejudices, by which the Public alone have always been the sufferers; the laws relating to imprisonment for debt are altered; and the Fleet Prison is pulled down!

Who knows, but by the time the series reaches its conclusion, it may be discovered that there are even magistrates in town and country, who should be taught to shake hands every day with Common-sense and Justice; that even Poor Laws may have mercy on the weak, the aged, and unfortunate; that Schools, on the broad principles of Christianity, are the best adornment for the length and breadth of this civilised land; that Prison doors should be barred on the outside, no less heavily and carefully than they are barred within; that the universal diffusion of common means of decency and health is as much the right of the poorest of the poor, as it is indispensable to the safety of the rich, and of the State; that a few petty boards and bodies- less than drops in the great ocean of humanity, which roars around them- are not for ever to let loose Fever and Consumption on God's creatures at their will, or always to keep their jobbing little fiddles going, for a Dance of Death!

Characters

MISS ALLEN, Arabella Allen's aunt.

ARABELLA ALLEN, bewitching black-eyed sister of Ben Allen.

BENJAMIN ALLEN, Arabella's brother, medical student and companion to Bob Sawyer.

MR. AYRESLEIGH, a middle-aged debtor detained at Mr. Namby's.

THE ONE-EYED BAGMAN, a story-teller with a roguish expression of fun and good-humour.

JACK BAMBER, friend of Mr. Lowten, teller of "The Old Man's Tale about the Queer Client."

ANGELO CYRUS BANTAM, ESQ., M.C., the elegant Master of Ceremonies at Bath.

MARTHA BARDELL, comely widow of agreeable appearance, Mr. Pickwick's landlady.

TOMMY BARDELL, Mrs. Bardell's young son.

BETSY, Mrs. Raddles's servant.

PRINCE BLADUD, the unhappy son of King Lud.

MR. BLOTTON (of Aldgate), an argumentative member of the Club.

CAPTAIN BOLDWIG, a little fierce landowner.

MR. SERJEANT BUZFUZ, barrister for the plaintiff in Bardell v. Pickwick.

DINGLEY DELL CLERGYMAN, a bald-headed, good-humoured benevolent gentleman.

ELIZABETH CLUPPINS, Mrs. Bardell's brisk, busy-looking friend.

MRS. CRADDOCK, Mr. Pickwick's landlady at Bath.

TOM CRIPPS, Bob Sawyer's young servant at Bristol.

MR. DODSON, attorney for Mrs. Bardell, a plump, portly, stern-looking man of business.

MR. DOWLER, a fierce-looking former army officer who visits Bath with the Pickwickians.

MRS. DOWLER, his pretty and agreeable wife.

MR. DUBBLEY, leader of a division of special constables in Ipswich.

JOHN EDMUNDS, the young convict in "The Convict's Return."

HORATIO FIZKIN, ESQ., of Fizkin Lodge, Buff candidate for Parliament.

WILKINS FLASHER, a stockbroker.

MR. FOGG, attorney for Mrs. Bardell, an elderly, pimply-faced, vegetable diet sort of man.

GOODWIN, domestic accomplice to Mrs. Pott.

GABRIEL GRUB, a morose sexton carried away by goblins.

DANIEL GRUMMER, a special constable in Ipswich.

MR. GUNTER, guest of Bob Sawyer.

MR. HARRIS, an obsequious Bath greengrocer.

GEORGE HEYLING, the "Queer Client," a debtor with a passion for revenge.

JACK HOPKINS, medical student and friend of Bob Sawyer.

LUD HUDIBRAS, the mighty King of Britain.

ANTHONY HUMM, President of the Brick Lane Branch of the United Grand Junction Ebenezer Temperance Association.

LEO HUNTER, the grave husband of Mrs. Leo Hunter, The Den, Eatanswill.

MRS. LEO HUNTER, hostess and author of "Ode to an Expiring Frog."

JEM HUTLEY ("Dismal Jemmy"), a lank, seedy actor, Job Trotter's brother.

MR. JACKSON, clerk to Messrs. Dodson and Fogg.

ALFRED JINGLE, an itinerant actor.

MR. JINKS, clerk to Mr. Nupkins.