PREFACE. HE following biographies were contributed by Mr De Quincey to the seventh edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica, in the years 1838-9. His own estimate of the article on Shakspeare may be gathered from the following letter: July 16, 1838. "No paper ever cost me so much labour: parts of it have been recomposed three times over. And thus far I anticipate your approval of this article, that no one question has been neglected, which I ever heard of in connection with Shakspeare's name; and I fear no rigour of examination, notwithstanding I have had no books to assist me but the two volumes lent me by yourself, (viz. 1st vol. of Alex. Chalmers's edit. 1826, and the late popular edit. in one vol. by Mr Campbell.) The sonnets I have been obliged to quote by memory, and for many of my dates or other materials to depend solely on my memory." Subsequently he adds, "The Shakspeare article cost me more intense labour than any I ever wrote in my life. The final part has cost me a vast deal of labour in condensing; and I believe, if you examine it, you will not complain of want of novelty, which luckily was in this case quite reconcilable with truth,-so deep is the mass of error which has gathered about Shakspeare." Notes, in which De Quincey so freely indulged, were, in the case of the Encyclopædia articles, occasionally so long that no page but a quarto could have admitted them. In this reprint these have been dealt with according to his own rule, and placed at the end of the volume. The article on "The Political Parties of Modern England" was written towards the end of the year 1837, as a continuation of one upon "Toryism, Whiggism, and Radicalism," which appeared in "Tait's Edinburgh Magazine;" but having been suppressed, for the reason afterwards explained, the manuscript was presented to the present publishers by the late William Tait, proprietor of that magazine, and is now printed for the first time. 2 House to a tempt either one or the other process up cusins to the particular mode and the extent of che Do not who and by what arms is to be the & repmistio — that is the Radical point of ma itself at fault. The House of Lords will not her on the part of the reforming faction, will be a -powerful section is nation in it's better and more, Even if the Lord's House were not (as it is) the en present constitution as known to the laws and usager ito immediate consequence, but wouts in its alf and as complete a complete a me as wer was effected wo and supposing that without any grop siolation of the - cupping worn that good results might be anticipated uncertainty of political anticipations), supposing in XV.---A لم |