avoidable urse of the ! and find instructive I have not ratification the rash I passed lection, or hat I then ding their and prothe force and more what the seems to feeling such an the ab he con- enerally "I retract therefore, peremptorily and firmly, the advice I formerly gave against the publication of these discourses; and earnestly recommend you to lose no time in letting the public at large have the pleasure and benefit of their perusal. The subject, perhaps, may prevent them from making any great or immediate sensation; but I feel that they will excite considerable interest, and command universal respect; while the previous circulation of your 100 eleemosynary copies, among persons who probably include the most authoritative and efficient guides of public taste and opinion now living, must go far to secure its early and favorable notice. "I write this hurriedly, after finishing my legal preparations for to-morrow, and feel that I shall sleep better for this disburdening of my conscience. I feel, too, as if I was secure of your acceptance of this tardy recantation of my former heresies; and that you will be pleased, and even perhaps a little proud, of your convertite! But if not, I can only say that I shall willingly submit to any penance you can find in your heart to impose on me. I know enough of that heart of old, not to be very apprehensive of its severity; and now good night, and God bless you! I am very old, and have many infirmities; but I am tenacious of old friendships, and find much of my present enjoyments in the recollections of the past. "With all good and kind wishes, Ever very gratefully and affectionately yours, "F. JEFFREY." NOTE. THESE Elementary Lectures, on Moral (or Mental) Philosophy, were delivered in the Royal Institution in the years 1804-5-6, before a mixed audience of ladies and gentlemen, upon a subject very little considered then in this country. They are scarcely more than an enumeration of those great men that have originated and treated on this important science, with a short account of their various opinions, and frequent compilations from their works. Though Mr. Sydney Smith had had the advantage of a close attendance, for five years, upon the beautiful lectures delivered by Mr. Dugald Stewart in the University of Edinburgh, and an almost daily communication with him, and with that remarkable man Dr. Thomas Brown, who succeeded Mr. Stewart in the professor's chair of Moral Philosophy, yet these Lectures, from the circumstances under which they were delivered, were necessarily very superficial; it being impossible to fix the attention of persons wholly unaccustomed to such abstruse and difficult subjects, with any beneficial effect, for the prescribed time of the Lecture. Some portions of the first course of Lectures were, a few years after, amplified and embodied in the "Edinburgh Review," under the titles of Professional Education,* Female Education, and Public Schools; and as he considered what remained could be of no further use, he destroyed several, and was proceeding to destroy the whole. An earnest entreaty was made that those not yet torn up might be spared, and it was granted. * These subjects were introduced in the Lectures on Memory, on Imagination, and on Association. These Lectures then (the first course being rendered very imperfect, though from the ninth they are perfect and consecutive) profess to be nothing more than a popular colloquial sketch of a very curious and interesting subject, written to be spoken. They are given in clear language, often illustrated by happy allusions, by eloquence, and by a playfulness of fancy that was eminently his own. Though very far from a learned book, it may prove perhaps an interesting one; conveying great truths, and much useful knowledge, in a less dry and repulsive shape than in a discussion on Moral Philosophy they are commonly to be found. |