"It is for slaves to lie, and for freemen to speak truth.

"In the examples, which I here bring in, of what I have heard, read,
done, or said, I have forbid myself to dare to alter even the most light
and indifferent circumstances. My conscience does not falsify one tittle.
What my ignorance may do, I cannot say."
MONTAIGNE.

LONDON:

PRINTED BY S. AND R. BENTLEY,

Dorset Street, Fleet Street.

PREFACE.

THE reader will oblige me by letting me explain to him, how the volume, here offered to his perusal, came to be what it is. I think it due to myself to make the explanation; and as a conscientious reader of the prefaces of other men, I may request his indulgence without scruple.

The work was originally intended to be nothing but a selection from the Author's writings, preceded by a biographical sketch. I engaged for it, together with another work, as soon as I returned to England; but the delight of finding myself among