I cannot plead the conventional excuse of the solicitation of unduly partial friends for the appearance of this volume; nor, on the other hand, can I be charged with a desire to rush into print, as all these Essays have been published long ago (some more than a quarter of a century), in the pages of an esteemed Periodical, with a much wider circulation than they are likely to attain in a collective form. Two of them have appeared in a French garb in Paris.
{{comment.content}}