tion, won the esteem and affection of all who came into communion with him.

Thus much may be permitted to one who sincerely regarded the subject of this brief memoir, and who would fain snatch from oblivion a few memorials of his worth and talents, by this feeble tribute to his name.

The remainder of the papers in this collection are from the pens of persons (chiefly now no more) who held civil and military appointments, and of various other British residents in Bengal.

December, 1836.

"Fuge, quo descendere gestis:

Non erit emisso reditus tibi. Quid miser egi?

Quid volui?"

HOR. Lib. I. Ep. xx. v. 5, 6,7.

B

ADDRESS TO THE READER.

DR. JOHNSON commences a periodical work with observing, that every one must have felt the difficulty of the first address on any new occasion. At this moment, alas! I experience how wofully true is his remark, and gladly would I waive altogether such previous ceremony, but that custom-imperious custom-forbids ;-she has pronounced a Preface to be an indispensable preliminary, and to her dictates I must with submission bow. Yet, by the way, in all works, except those that resemble the present, there is somewhat of a blunder in giving them this denomination, for they seldom contain any prefatory observations, and should rather be styled, and take the usual place of Postscripts, serving, as they do, to extenuate, or more fully explain, matter that ought previously to have been read. So sensible of this was Mr. Plowden, that he termed his a "postliminous preface;" rather a strange term it is true, but perfectly appropriate when we remember that it was attached to a history of Ireland.