IV 
ADDRESS. 
address on any new occasion is felt by every man 
in his transactions with the world : ” but the au- 
thor of the following pages, who is not altogether 
untried, ventures to submit that even greater dif- 
ficulties than these press upon the man who, 
having been once in action, has a true estimation 
of the dangers to which he is exposed while he 
is deliberately advancing upon the batteries of 
public opinion. How frequently do we see im- 
passioned Hope spring fearlessly onward upon 
ground where cautious Experience treads with a 
trembling foot. 
It especially belongs to the present era of 
literature to be adorned with men who, over- 
stepping the narrow limits of mere scholastic 
lore, read the history and the laws of nature 
from her own most ample and instructive page. 
In times of old, when the investigation of truth 
was, to all ordinary capacities, barred by the 
stern dogmas of the learned, planted as cen- 
tinels in the very porch of knowledge, the 
projectors themselves were ranging through- 
out the labyrinths of fancy to the extreme 
boundaries of possibility, gathering the wild 
flowers of imagination, and delighting to lose 
