PREFACE. Yll 



he contemplated was one on " Woods and Plantations." He 

 had also intended, at the suggestion of the Earl of Lonsdale, 

 a dissertation on the " Revival of Agriculture in Britain " 

 considering that a decided era was ascertainable ; and 

 the history would have been carried down to, and have 

 embraced, the introduction and development of the turnip 

 and green crop systems of farming, which constitute the 

 grand basis of improvement and progress in British, as 

 contrasted with the declension of Roman, Agriculture, so 

 clearly traced and described in his Essay on " Ancient 

 Husbandry." 



The above circumstances of the degree of ultimate 

 revision of the respective Essays by their Author are 

 thus particularly stated, because some of his views are 

 subjects not only of pending discussion and difference of 

 opinion, but of naturally important and enduring interest. 

 Truth and public enlightenment, however, were the sole 

 aim of the writer, and if now alive, he would have honestly 

 abandoned any demonstrated error; he scorned sinister 

 falsehood and ignorant prejudice, and he had little sympathy 

 with their victims. 



The sterling merit and popularity of these remarkable 

 contributions of Mr. GISBORNE to the periodical literature 

 of his times, amply justify the collection and republication 

 of his Essays in a complete and permanent form. It 

 is a vulgar error to regret that eminent literary men of 

 the present age should have " wasted " their labour as 

 " writers of reviews." No greater fallacy has been current. 

 Even the minor periodicals are in some sort the nurseries 

 of national literature. They are essentially cosmopolite, 

 as the medium of much foreign communication with the 

 Republic of Letters. The higher class of Reviews maintains 

 the standard of literature, and contributes to the purifi- 

 cation of the public appetite and taste for knowledge, 

 whilst it creates and trains up a certain number of superior 

 writers. Perhaps, in no instance, can it be proved that 

 Contributors of any class have, in consequence, failed to 



