Entered according to an Act of Congress, in the year 1855, By WEBB, GILL, & LEVERING, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the District of Kentucky. TO THE MOST REVEREND JOHN BAPTIST PURCELL, D. D., Archbishop of Cincinnati, A DEVOTED CHRISTIAN BISHOP, AND A TRUE AMERICAN CITIZEN, The following Pages are respectfully Inscribed BY THE AUTHOR. DG .573 PREFACE. THE following pages contain a collection of Reviews, Lectures, and Essays, written during the last ten years. In republishing them in a connected form, with such modifications and corrections as seemed to be called for by change of circumstances, the author has yielded to the urgent solicitations of many partial friends, whose judgment he highly values. In making the selection, he has endeavored to choose in preference those fugitive pieces, the subjects of which appeared to possess more than a merely passing interest. As the publication progressed, he found that it would be expedient to depart somewhat from the programme of articles, as first issued; changing the order, omitting some, and adding others which were deemed of more importance. The indulgent reader will, he trusts, be satisfied with the change, which will accrue to his benefit in one respect, if in no other,— that the collection now contains nearly one hundred pages of matter additional to what was promised by the publishers. He will also have the goodness to bear in mind, that most of the papers contained in this Volume were written originally for monthly magazines; which will account for the tone which still pervades a few of them, notwithstanding the modifications which have been introduced. Though an advocate for a plain and straight-forward manner of speaking and writing, as most suitable to the character of our people and the temper of the times, yet, if writing at present, the author would probably adopt a tone considerably different from that which marks some of these Essays. A complete modification of manner could not, however, have been effected, without re-writing them entirely, for which his numerous occupations did not allow him the necessary time. But if he has been plain, and occasionally severe, he hopes |