Pickering 2-18-27 14414 INTRODUCTION. S the author of the following attempt doth not A$ remember to have seen any work regularly executed upon fuch a plan as he hath laid down; the reader will indulge him in the liberty of making a few introductory obfervations, which may tend to alleviate, if not to remove those prejudices, which almost every species of novelty is apt at first view to excite. The fubject of the present Effay falls fo naturally under the cognizance of every reflecting mind, that we have no reason to be surprised, when we find it treated in the most copious manner by many writers both ancient and modern. It is however certain in general, that philofophical differtations, in whatever degree intrinfically valuable, lose their effect on the bulk of mankind, when they are not enlivened with those graces which contribute to amufe the imagination. It is on this account that we find a moral work, in which the most important truths are accurately investigated, overlooked as uninteresting; when a ferics of incidents, which are calculated to impress upon the mind fome beneficial rule of conduct, is perused with fatisfaction, and feldom fails to establish a favourable pre. poffeffion. So much ftronger is the impulfe which leads us to |