PREFACE. IN presenting this little volume to public notice, I have decided, by the advice of those I respect, to withdraw from the shelter of anonymous publication; and this I do, not from any expectations that a name so unimportant as that which is affixed to this work, can be, in any degree, influential towards its success; but because it best accords with the opinions expressed in it, thus publicly to attest them to be my real opinions. To those who have honoured my former works with approbation, and with a patronage which makes me fearfully responsible for the power they have themselves com |