John Galt supplied this introduction to the autobiography that Grant Thorburn, his model for the character of Lawrie Todd, published in 1834. The introduction was included in the British edition of Forty Years’ Residence in America; or, the Doctrine of a Particular Providence exemplified in the life of Grant Thorburn, (the Original Lawrie Todd,) Seedsman, New York. Written by Himself (London: James Fraser, 1834). It was omitted from the American edition, published that same year in Boston by Russell, Odiorne and Metcalf; in Philadelphia by Marshall Clark and Co.; and in New York by Monson Bancroft.

INTRODUCTION.

Having just published my “Autobiography,” I agree, of course, with Grant Thorburn in thinking that a man is best qualified to write his own memoirs; not, however, for the reason he assigns, but because the critics, of whom he seems to entertain a very independent opinion, generally review works of that kind with marks of civility. He evidently thinks that a man knows his own motives and springs of action better than his friends do, and that the doctors of universities, alias the bats of cloisters, have as few means and opportunities of knowing the world, as the keeper of a much-frequented seed-store in the city of New York. It may be so; and I have great pleasure in saying, that I am as persuaded of the verity of all the adventures he has recorded in the subsequent pages, as that he himself is the vrai original of “Lawrie Todd,” though Lawrie may be, perhaps, a little curtailed in the fair proportion of those singularities which constitute so much of Mr. Thorburn's right to distinction.

I really regret that he has not told how we became “first acquaint,” because it may lead some to imagine that he is not himself very well pleased I should have taken so great a liberty with him upon so slight a knowledge; but, after reading his book, I shall be surprised if they remain unconverted from the error of their way, or suppose that I have been guilty of exaggerating the lineaments of a character in which Nature, in some leisure moment, when tired with making heroes and men of genius, playfully shewed that her ingredients for variety are inexhaustible.