PREFACE. I HAVE COLLECTED in this volume some of the Articles which at various times I have contributed to different periodicals. It is, perhaps, pardonable in an author to wish to rescue a few of his anonymous productions from the wave of oblivion which so soon passes over ephemeral literature. I have added one or two Lectures, which I have delivered at several places. Whether the Essays which I have here reprinted deserve the attempt to secure for them a more permanent record must be determined by the judgment of the public, from whose decision there is no appeal. W. F. |