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diffident hope that they may be found deserving of some portion of its favour and indulgence.

The first volume comprises a continuation of the series of Plays on the stronger Passions of the Mind, and completes all that I intended to write on the subject: for envy and revenge are so frequently exposed in our Dramas,—the latter, particularly, has been so powerfully delineated,—that I have thought myself at liberty to exclude them from my plan as originally contemplated. The two following volumes of Miscellaneous Plays will complete the whole of my Dramatic Works.

In thus relinquishing my original intention, there is one thing particularly soothing to my feelings,— that those frendly readers who encouraged my early dramatic writings (alas, how reduced in numbers!) will see the completion of the whole. This will, at least, gratify their curiosity; and it would be ungrateful in me not to believe that they will, also, take some interest in the latter part of a work, the beginning of which their partial favour so kindly fostered.

With the exception of two Dramas, "The Martyr," and "The Bride," the matter of the