lication from what was contemplated at first. But my publisher thought it best; perhaps it is so and I have only to hope, that in adding to the attractions of the title-page, it will not make the greater part of the work seem unworthy of it.

PREFACE

TO THE SECOND EDITION.

THE appearance of this cheaper edition will put an end, I hope, to the misconceptions occasioned by partial extracts: at least with all honest readers who shall see it. To others of that class, if I had them within hearing, I should say, that they go counter to their own principles, or perhaps are not quite so unwilling to think evil as they suppose, when they condemn a man without hearing the whole of his case, and without knowing all that he has to of himself as well as of others. But these,

say,

I trust, are few in comparison with my honest

and hearty defenders,-friends indeed,-for they burst upon me when I most needed them.

As for misrepresentations arising from dishonesty, or from ignorance, or a passionate mixture of both, I am too well aware of a certain quarter of the press not to have been prepared for them; and have too little respect for it, to feel them more than I ought. It is in the nature of things for those who differ with society, to be misconceived even by the best men, who are not very discerning how much more must they reckon upon the attacks and mis-statements of those, whom a thousand fancied interests and mortified self-loves enlist on the side of abuse? The public themselves, as a body, have their vices; and conscious of practising a good deal of deception with one another, and persuading themselves it is unavoidable, are disposed to prefer a good regular scandal-monger whom

they can despise, before a humanist who speaks the truth in zeal and candour, let his sympathy with mankind at large be never so unequivocal. It is true, I believe he ultimately makes his way with them. They feel it to be their interest that he should; and they learn even to bring out their virtues at the warmth of his belief in virtue. But meanwhile it is only by an effort of generosity, that any man implicated in the present state of things, can think the best of another, whose faults differ with his own, and whose good qualities appear to rebuke hiin.

All this will not hinder me from continuing to be sincere. I shall remain so to my dying day, knowing what an effect one strenuous example has upon society, contrary to what is eternally said to the reverse; and being of opinion, that the world is lost over and over again, solely by people's losing their hopes of

it in middle life. And I shall comfort myself under mistake and calumny meanwhile, by reflecting, that calumny itself is but a part of mistake; and that in thinking myself neither a bit better nor worse than any other man (which is what I think of all men, for they are all creatures of circumstance), I have a right both to the task which circumstances have put into my hands, and to the bestnatured construction that can be put upon my own errors.

Agreeably to these opinions, but protesting at the same time against any conclusion to be drawn from the confession, apart from a knowledge of all which this book contains, I frankly avow, that as far as the sincerity in it has taken a splenetic turn, which was a thing unnecessary, I wish it had never been written. I have other reasons also for the regret, which are not so easy of explanation; though I should have entered very freely into them, had