PEEFATORY NOTE. 



IV /TY former volume of Essays has been so 

 -*^-*- received that I am emboldened to make an- 

 other and more miscellaneous collection. The papers 

 here gathered have been written at intervals during the 

 last fifteen years, and I knew no way so effectual to rid 

 my mind of them and make ready for a new departure, 

 as this of shutting them between two covers where 

 they can haunt me, at least, no more. I should have 

 preferred a simpler title, but publishers nowadays are 

 inexorable on this point, and I was too much occupied 

 for happiness of choice. That which I have desperately 

 snatched is meant to imply both the books within and 

 the world without, and perhaps may pass muster in the 

 case of one who has always found his most fruitful 

 study in the open air. 



