PREFACE. 



I AM told that I should have a Preface or Introduction 

 to my book. My adviser being one of known taste and 

 judgment, I am determined that one part of this 

 work shall show both good taste and good judgment 

 in its Author. That part, and possibly the only part 

 that will do so, is the taking such advice. Conscience 

 whispers that an apology for offering it to public 

 notice is still more necessary. This I was not told : 

 politeness alone probably prevented my being so : let 

 me therefore hope the public will consider what I 

 now offer as Preface, Introduction, and Apology. 



I have read prefaces in which the Author assures 

 his reader, if the book is found to beguile a vacant 

 hour of his time that its end and aim will have been 

 fully accomplished. That such philanthropic feelings 

 may actuate such authors, it would ill become me to 

 dispute : where they do, I conceive they must emanate 

 either from men of such transcendent abilities that 

 composing a work gives them no trouble, or from 

 those of such fortunes that pecuniary advantage was 

 quite beneath their consideration. 



That I am not one of the former class I am per- 

 fectly satisfied ; that I am not now one of the latter 

 I am as perfectly convinced, though by no means 

 satisfied. 



