Introduction

Summary

This work may be considered as a second edition, much enlarged and improved, of the Three Letters to Mr. Garnett, recently published; as it contains nearly the whole of the matter of those letters. It is nevertheless presented to the public in a state that requires apology for its imperfections. This apology rests upon the circumstances which have given rise to it, and the situation of the country. Books, written as this has been, on the spur of the occasion, to shed light on passing subjects of policy, on which the decision may be precipitated previous to their appearance, (if not hurried through the press,) cannot, without injustice, be tried by the rigorous rules of general criticism. This would be almost as unfair as to scan a house erected in haste for a new settler in the wilderness, by the rules laid down by Palladio—or to criticise the dress of a lady whom circumstances have forced to appear before the eye in entire dishabille, as rigorously as if she had made her entrée into a ball room on a gala evening.

The grand object of such books is to convey information. Ornaments of composition are but secondary considerations. Whatever effect they are likely to produce, depends on the time of their appearance. The object may be wholly defeated by the delay of a week, perhaps of a day.