Page:Biographical and critical miscellanies (IA biographicalcrit00presrich).pdf/23



following Essays, with a single exception, have been selected from contributions originally made to the North American Review. They are purely of a literary character; and as they have little reference to local or temporary topics, and as the journal in which they appeared, though the most considerable in the United States, is not widely circulated in Great Britain, it has been thought that a republication of the articles might have some novelty and interest for the English reader.

Several of the papers were written many years since; and the author is aware that they betray those crudities in the execution which belong to an unpractised writer, while others of more recent date may be charged with the inaccuracies incident to rapid, and, sometimes, careless composition. The more obvious blemishes he has endeavoured to correct, without attempting to reform the critical judgments, which, in some cases, he could wish had been expressed in a more qualified and temperate manner; and he dismisses the volume with the hope that, in submitting it to the British public, he may not be thought to have relied too far on that indulgence which has been so freely extended to his more elaborate efforts.