prompted by any impulses incapable of a generous construction, he is speaking out of his own instinctive meanness, and his own conscious want of veracity; and I return him any epithets he may be inclined to bestow upon me, as equally unfit for me to receive, and himself to part with.

If any one can convince me of an error,I am not in love with error, but truth-and will gladly rectify it. I boast of being a Liberal in the sense laid down the other day by the Morning Chronicle, and am ready on all occasions to be tried by it.*

Finally, if any one asks what it is that supports me under the trying circumstances,

The terms liberal and illiberal," says the Chronicle, would, in the present day, be more appropriate than those of Whig and Tory. Liberal supposes an homage to knowledge, a disposition to submit all opinions to the test of free enquiry, and to be always open to conviction. Whig and Tory, as opposed to each other, as we have observed, is a merely nominal distinction; but liberal and illiberal are as opposite as light and darkness."

in which I have to work out (as becomes me) the remainder of my days, I answer, that it is my belief in the natural goodness and capability of mankind, and the testimonies borne to my endeavours in consequence by the love of those who know me most intimately, and the esteem and good word of those who publicly agree with me. I cannot express the sense I have (at least I am not well enough at present to dare to let my heart attempt it) of the eloquent and cordial articles that have appeared in defence of this work in various journals, both in town and country. What renders them especially welcome (and I may mention in particular, though not all on that account, those in the Sunday Monitor, the Hereford Independent, and the Athenæum,-the last in a friendly quarter, but evidently by one who thinks for himself,) is, that the authors of some of them state themselves to have grown up in

intimacy with my writings, and to have had their opinions materially affected by them; so that every noble aspiration they utter, and every graceful sentence in which it is clothed, seem to come home to me like golden sheaves of the harvest that I have contributed to SOW. This, indeed, makes me feel prouder than self-knowledge will allow me to feel with any thing more my own.

The writer in the Athenæum, (whose remarks I had not entirely seen till the rest of this preface had been written,) has offered me advice on one or two points, which I shall carefully consider, and upon which I can very well imagine I stand in need of it. But he is mistaken in thinking that I quarrelled with Mr. Moore, merely for saying

that the Liberal had a "taint" in it.

.

It

was a thing bad enough to say, and foolish; but Mr. Moore might have accused the Liberal of having a thousand taints in it, had

he discussed that matter openly with us. It was the secret way in which he did it, and in which he spoke against us, that constituted the offence. I verily believe, that it is not in the power of sincerity and openness to offend me, beyond an almost immediate forgiveness. I am sure, that sincerity and good-nature, united, could not possibly do so, let the truths they told me make me never so melancholy. I hardly dare tell the reader, how little even the grossest abuse affects me, in the angry sense of the word, when I think the writer a sincere person. But if there is any thing in the world that I feel to be provoking, it is want of fairness and open dealing. It is vexatious enough even in such shallow fellows as this knave of the Quarterly; but to meet with it among friends, and friends of humanity at large (for such I take all men of genius to be by na

ture), and to see them consenting to carry on this tragic farce of insincerity, which is the very thing that cuts up their own comfort with mankind, and makes them fancy them not to be bettered,-this,-if one did not know how weak a thing it was, and how contrary to the part which the unwearied Spirit of the Universe is for ever suggesting to the young and enthusiastic hearts with which it seems to begin its endeavours over again-might be thought sufficient to make one lie down at once, and die of this bad jest of the universe. me not be supposed to believe in any such alternative. The sight of one open face,-I could almost say, of one green and quiet field,-would be enough to make me hope to the last; and I have hope for the next world, should it fail me in this. But the moment is a bitter one, which discovers to c 3

VOL. I.

Let