4-12-50MFP Bates Mc Leish 12-6-46 56828 PREFACE. OF F a work like the present it seems incumbent upon me to offer a few prefatory remarks. Something, it may be necessary to say, in extenuation of an attempt, which will, I doubt not, be considered by many as, at once, daring, and unnecessary. To deprecate the severity of criticism by an avowal of my motives, may not be unproductive of the desired effect; and, if I succeed in imprissing that conviction, the following sheets may be read by the warmest admirer of the author here controverted. But to those, who "Ne'er advance a judgment of their own, I am fully aware all endeavours to that purpose will be nugatory; and respecting the opinions of such, I feel myself perfectly at ease. It is from the tribunal of just, and rational criticism that I await my sentence; from men who, in the execution of their high office, can lull their strongest prejudices to sleep, and pass a dispassionate verdict on the productions of contemporary authors; to them, to the RESPECTABLE BODY OF REVIEWERS, and to the ENLIGHTENED OF MY COUNTRYMEN, I submit this first production of an early mind. When I first perused the nervous writings of Dr. Johnson, I was enraptured; was enthusiastic in my admiration; I bowed implicit confidence to their VERACITY. Pleasure so unabated called for a renewal, and I flew with eagerness to the volumes, which contained such trea sures; but the first delirium of admira of understanding resumed their sway. I saw less to admire, and something to censure; the mass was impressed upon my heart; and I bore about me intellectual scenes of existence, which I panted to realize. Suspence, when attached to events of importance, is a state of existence the most dreadful human nature can sustain; to shake it off, to arrive at certainty, are endeavours coincident with it. To substantiate then the facts existing in my mind was my ceaseless exertions. Day followed day; events succeeded events; man still acted on the busy theatre of the world; and characters of importance still continued to attract public attention; but amid all this vortex of bustle and confusion, amid this continually varied scene of human existence, I found nothing analagous to the dogmas of Johnson; I found nothing consentaneous to his pictures of life. Yet a consciousness of the fallibility of man, would would not suffer me to form ultimate or hasty conclusions; I was more willing to suspect myself of weakness, than Dr. Johnson of error. What then was to be done? I read his works again, and again; In vain I sought to assimilate them within. the utmost verge of existing realities; the task was fruitless!-THEY WERE FALSE ! The ruling principle of my life has ever been the immediate, or ultimate benefit of society. Regarding myself as a being, placed in this nether world, as a part of a vast and unlimited connexion, and responsible for the use of those faculties whatever they may be, bestowed upon me by the Great Creator, I reflected upon the probable good likely to result to that society, from the general writings of Johnson. I saw them replete with the most dangerous consequences; to me they appeared so; and to me they still appear so. I perceived them calculated from their wide dissemination, from the |