P R E F A С Е. 4 WE have, in the first place, to return our thanks to the Public for the favours with which they continue to receive our endeavours to contribute to their instruction and entertainment." State super vias antiquas "-may be said to the motto of our book; and certainly, we lose no opportunity afforded us of searching for, and bringing forward whatever memorials of antiquity may have escaped the devastations of time, which can reflect light on the history of the past, or lead to any useful comparison with the usages and institutions of the present. While some of our pages are thus devoted to subjects "antiquos exquirere mores,” in others, we endeavour to accompany and observe the progress and tendency of modern literature; to point out whatever is most eminent in merit, or to show where the rules of good taste have been neglected, and errors in fact or in reasoning substituted for truth. If a larger share of our pages should by some be considered to be employed in the latter division of the work, they should recollect that there is this difference between the subject-matter in which the researches of the Antiquary are employed, and those which occupy the attention of the literary inquirer — that the former are rigidly bounded by a definite quantity of materials which cannot be increased; and all that labour can effect, is to clear away the valuable substance from the soils of antiquity, repair what is imperfect, and illuminate what is obscure. But literature is a body possessing a perpetual vitality, an inexhaustible power of increase in itself; so that it is constantly presenting a fresh supply of inlectual food, in such abundant measure as to require a rigid discrimination and forbearance |