WORKS OF OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. POEMS. Household Edition. Portrait. 12mo... Illustrated Library Edition. With portrait and 32 Blue and Gold Edition. Portrait. 32mo. SONGS IN MANY KEYS. 16m0...... SONGS OF MANY SEASONS. 16mo.... ASTRÆA: The Balance of Illusions. 16mo... THE AUTOCRAT OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. $2.00 4.00 1.25 1.50 1.50 2.00 .75 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 12mo.. 12mo..... THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. The Breakfast-Table Series, Elsie Venner, The Guardian CURRENTS AND COUNTER-CURRENTS IN MEDI- SOUNDINGS FROM THE ATLANTIC. 16mo........... 2.00 2.00 6.00 2.00 2.00 10.00 1.75 1.00 1.75 1.00 .50 .50 4.00 THE IRON GATE, AND OTHER POEMS. A new volume, with fine new Portrait on Steel. 12mo, gilt top..... 1.25 For sale by all Booksellers. Sent, post-paid, on receipt of price by the Publishers, HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND CO., BOSTON, MASS. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1858, by OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. H7094 H75a 1881 THE AUTOCRAT'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY. THE interruption referred to in the first sentence of the first of these papers was just a quarter of a century in duration. Two articles entitled "The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table" will be found in the "New England Magazine," formerly published in Boston by J. T. and E. Buckingham. The date of the first of these articles is November 1831, and that of the second February 1832. When "The Atlantic Monthly" was begun, twentyfive years afterwards, and the author was asked to write for it, the recollection of these crude products of his uncombed literary boyhood suggested the thought that it would be a curious experiment to shake the same bough again, and see if the ripe fruit were better or worse than the early windfalls. So began this series of papers, which nat urally brings those earlier attempts to my own notice and that of some few friends who were 9198 idle enough to read them at the time of their publication. The man is father to the boy that was, and I am my own son, as it seems to me, in those papers of the New England Magazine. If I find it hard to pardon the boy's faults, others would find it harder. They will not, therefore, be reprinted here, nor as I hope, anywhere. But a sentence or two from them will perhaps bear reproducing, and with these I trust the gentle reader, if that kind being still breathes, will be contented. "It is a capital plan to carry a tablet with you, and, when you find yourself felicitous, take notes of your own conversation.". "When I feel inclined to read poetry I take down my Dictionary. The poetry of words is quite as beautiful as that of sentences. The author may arrange the gems effectively, but their fhape and luftre have been given by the attrition of ages. Bring me the finest fimile from the whole range of imaginative writing, and I will show you a fingle word which conveys a more profound, a more accurate, and a more eloquent analogy."— "Once on a time, a notion was started, that if all the people in the world would fhout at once, it might be heard in the moon. So the projectors agreed it should be done in just ten years. Some thousand shiploads of chronometers were distributed to the selectmen and other great folks of all the different nations. For a year beforehand, nothing else was talked about but the |