PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION 



When you have made a mistake, generally the worst 

 thing you can do is to enter into explanations ; and when 

 anybody begins with saying that something is generally 

 inexpedient, you may be sure that he is, individually, and 

 by special exception, going to do it himself. The reader 

 will at once perceive that the Author of these pages, having 

 rashly published a first, is now (perhaps still more rashly) 

 about to apologise in a second edition. 



His work has met with, perhaps, more than its due pro- 

 portion of literary notice, in which, as is usual, it has 

 been praised and blamed for the same things by different 

 critics. Under these circumstances, the Author would 

 have been content to adopt the old expedient of accepting 

 the praise and ignoring the blame, if there had not been 

 one grave charge reiterated alike by reprovers and com- 

 menders (by these as "a serious blemish, which we the 

 more regret from the many excellences," &c. ; by those as 

 the head and front of offending) — namely, the "unscru- 

 pulous mixture of truth and fiction, which would mar a 

 better book than," &c. 



The Author takes this opportunity of assuring the intel- 

 ligent and perspicacious reader, that he had no intention 

 whatever of misleading him. He thought that, to the 



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