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SIR ROBERT HARRY INGLIS, BART.

&c. &c. &c.

My dear Sir Robert,

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Ir is both with pride and pleasure that I inscribe these Essays to you, as a public mark of respect, and a testimony of private regard; for if there be anything on which we may allowed to pride ourselves, it is upon that from whence one of our greatest pleasures is derived, .... the friendship of the wise and the good.

In revising them for republication, there were few opinions which I have found reason to modify, and none to retract. Had I indeed treated of political subjects with reference only to their temporary importance, and the in terests and passions of the passing day, I should not have deemed them worthy of preservation, still less of being dedicated to you.

You know how little my disposition inclines me toward public life, and that these are not pursuits in which I ever should have engaged willingly. But woe to him who remains inactive when it becomes his duty to exert himself! The part which I have taken has obtained for me, and in large measure, the esteem and good will of those by whom it is a comfort as well as an honour to be approved; and, on the other hand, the obloquy of men whose declared enmity is sufficient proof that the approbation which I desired has been deserved, 'maximum namque est bonitatis argumentum malis ig'navisque hominibus displicere.'

6

Most of these papers were written in times of public excitement, and in such a time they are now republished; for in this sense of the word I am truly a time-server. Never within our memory have the aspects appeared so threatening as at present. No foresight can avail against fatuity, and the desperate councils of demented men: but even the sceptical Bayle has remarked that in such emergencies there is a surer hope than any that rests upon