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, that has elapsed since the publication of the first volume, will, I trust, be considered as a proof that the portion of public approbation with which I have been favoured, has not rendered me presumptuous.

I know there are causes, why the second part of a work should be more severely dealt with than that which has preceded it: but after what I have experienced, it would be ungrateful in me not to suppose that the generality of readers will take up this volume with a disposition to be pleased: and that they will also, in favour of one who has no great pretensions to learning or improvements, be inclined to extend the term of good-natured indulgence a little beyond its ordinary limits.

The first play in this volume is a comedy on Hatred, as a companion to the tragedy I have already published upon the same subject. Of this I shall say little. I have endeavoured in it to shew this passion in a different situation, and fostered by a different species of provocation from that which was exhibited by De Monfort, and existing in a character of much less delicacy and reserve. I am aware, that it falls greatly short of that degree of comic effect which the subject is calculated to produce, and which a writer of truer comic talents would have given it.

The subject of the other three plays is Ambition. It is with regret that I have extended the serious part of it to an unusual length, but I found that within a smaller compass I could not give such a