pendix, and I am bound to profess myself indebted to this accomplished scholar and excellent friend for several hints of minute information by which I have considerably profited. The name of WILLIAM GIFFORD, so associated with praise in the conversation of the world, I have already taken occasion to introduce into the body of my volume; but I must not omit the present opportunity of mentioning that many of my last sheets, as they passed through the press, have been improved by the revision of this accurate critic, and most friendly man. On the plan and the execution of my work, I will not assume to influence the determination of the reader. It has been my object to present to him as complete a view of the subject, of which I have undertaken to treat, as was admitted by my materials or my powers; and to communicate to my pages all the variety and entertainment, of which they were susceptible, I have interspersed them with small pieces of criticism, with translations and extracts from my author, and with occasional, though short views of the great contemporary occurrences in the state. For the political sentiments discoverable in my work I am neither inclined, nor, indeed, able to offer an apology. They flow directly from those principles which I imbibed with my first efforts of reflexion, which have derived force from.my subsequent reading and observation, which have “ grown with my growth, and strengthened with my strength." If they should, therefore, unhappily be erroneous, my misfortune, as I fear, is hopelessly irremediable, for they are now so vitally blended with my thought and my feelings, that with them they must exist or must perish. The nature of these principles will be obviously and immediately apparent to my readers; for I have made too explicit an avowal of my political creed, with reference to the civil and the ecclesiastical system, of which I am fortunately a member, to be under any apprehensions of suffering by mis construction. If any man should affect to see more deeply into my bosom than I profess to see myself; or to detect an ambush of mischief which I have been studious to cover from observation,—that man will be the object, not of my resentment, but of my pity. I shall be assured that he suffers the infliction of a perverted head or a corrupt heart, and to that I shall contentedly resign him after expressing a simple perhaps, but certainly a sincere wish for his relief from what may justly be considered as the severest of human evils. I belong to a fallible species, and am, probably, to be numbered with the most fallible of its individuals: but I am superior to fraud, and am too proud for concealment. TRUTH, religious, moral, and political, is what alone, I profess to pursue; and if I fancied that I discerned this prime object of my regard by the side of the Mufti or the grand Lama, of the wild demagogues of Athens or the ferocious tribunes of Rome, I would instantly recognise and embrace her. As I find her, b however, or find a strong and bright resemblance of her in my own country, I feel that I am not summoned to propitiate duty with the sacrifice of prudence, and that, conscious of speaking honestly, I can enjoy the satisfaction of speaking safely. Without acknowledging any thing in common, but a name, with that malignant and selfish faction which, surrendering principle to passion, inflicted, in the earlier periods of the last century, some fatal wounds on the constitution, or with those men, who in later times, have struggled, in the abandonment of their party and its spirit, to retain its honourable appellation,-I glory as I profess myself to be a WHIG, to be of the school of SOMMERS and of LockE, to arrange myself in the same political class with those enlightened and virtuous statesmen, who framed the BILL OF RIGHTS and the ACT OF SETTLEMENT, and who, presenting a crown, which they had wrested from a pernicious bigot and his family, to the HOUSE OF HANOVER, gave that most honourable and legitimate of titles, |