Profpectus of The Friend, (extracted from a Letter to a Correfpondent.)

T is not unknown to you, that I have employed almost the whole of my life in acquiring, or endeavouring to acquire, ufeful knowledge by study, reflection, obfervation, and by cultivating the fociety of my fuperiors in intellect, both at home and in foreign countries. You know, too, that at different periods of my life I have not only planned, but collected the materials for, many works on various and important fubjects; fo many indeed, that the number of my unrealized fchemes and the mass of my miscellaneous fragments have often furnished my friends with a fubject of raillery, and fometimes of regret and reproof. Waiving the mention of all private and accidental hinderances, I am inclined to believe that this want of perfeverance has been produced in the main by an over activity of thought, modified by a conftitutional indolence, which made it more pleasant to me to continue acquiring, than to reduce what I had acquired to a regular form. Add, too, that almoft

daily throwing off my notices or reflections in defultory fragments, I was ftill tempted onward by an increasing sense of the imperfection of my knowledge, and by the conviction that, in order fully to comprehend and develope any one fubject, it was neceffary that I fhould make myself master of some other, which again as regularly involved a third, and fo on with an ever-widening horizon. Yet one habit, formed during long abfences from thofe with whom I could converfe with full fympathy, has been of advantage to me, that of daily noting down in my memorandum or common place books both incidents and observations;—whatever had occurred to me from without, and all the flux and reflux of my mind within itself. The number of these notices and their tendency, miscellaneous as they were, to one common end—(quid fumus et quid futuri gignimur, what we are and what we are born to become; and thus from the end of our being to deduce its proper objects)-firft encouraged me to undertake the weekly effay, of which you will confider this letter as the proSpectus.

Not only did the plan feem to accord better than any other with the nature of my own mind, both in its ftrength and in its weakness; but, conscious that in upholding fome principles both of taste and philosophy, adopted by the great men of Europe, from the middle of the fifteenth till toward the clofe of the feventeenth century, I must run counter to many prejudices of many of my readers, (for old faith is often modern herefy,) I perceived too in a periodical effay the most likely means of winning instead of forcing my way. The truth supposed on my fide, the shock of the first day might be so far leffened by the reflections of fucceeding days, as to

procure for my next week's effay a less hoftile reception than it would have met with had it been only the next chapter of a prefent volume. I hoped to difarm the mind of those feelings, which preclude conviction by contempt, and, as it were, fling. the door in the face of reasoning by a presumption of its abfurdity. A motive too for honourable ambition was fupplied by the fact, that every periodical paper of the kind now attempted, which had been conducted with zeal and ability, was not only well received at the time, but has become permanently, and in the best fenfe of the word, popular. By honourable ambition I mean the strong defire to be ufeful, aided by the wish to be generally acknowledged to have been so. As I feel myself actuated in no ordinary degree by this defire, fo the hope of realizing it appears less and lefs prefumptuous to me fince I have received from men of highest rank and established character in the republic of letters, not only strong encouragements as to my own fitness for the undertaking, but likewife promises of fupport from their own ftores.

The object of the Friend, briefly and generally expreffed, is-to uphold those truths and those merits, which are founded in the nobler and permanent parts of our nature, against the caprices of fashion and fuch pleasures as either depend on tranfitory and accidental caufes, or are purfued from lefs worthy impulfes. The chief subjects of my own effays will be:

The true and fole ground of morality or virtue, as distinguished from prudence:

The origin and growth of moral impulses, as distinguished from external and immediate motives:

The neceffary dependence of taste on moral impulfes and habits, and the nature of taste (relatively to judg

ment in general and to genius) defined, illustrated, and applied. Under this head I comprise the substance of the Lectures given, and intended to have been given, at the Royal Inftitution on the diftinguished English poets, in illuftration of the general principles of poetry; together with fuggeftions concerning the affinity of the fine arts to each other, and the principles common to them all; - architecture; gardening; drefs; mufic; painting; poetry:

The opening out of new objects of just admiration in our own language, and information as to the present state and past history of Swedish, Danish, German, and Italian literature,-to which, but as fupplied by a friend, I may add the Spanish, Portuguese, and French-as far as the fame has not been already given to English readers, or is not to be found in common French authors :

Characters met with in real life;-anecdotes and refults of my own life and travels, as far as they are illuftrative of general moral laws, and have no direct bearing on personal or immediate politics:

Education in its widest sense, private and national : Sources of confolation to the afflicted in misfortune, or disease, or dejection of mind, from the exertion and right application of the reason, the imagination, and the moral fense; and new fources of enjoyment opened out, or an attempt (as an illustrious friend once expressed the thought to me) to add funshine to daylight, by making the happy more happy. In the words "Dejection of mind" I refer particularly to doubt or disbelief of the moral government of the world, and the grounds and arguments for the religious hopes of human nature.

Such are the chief fubjects in the development of which I hope to realize, to a certain extent, the great object

of my effays. It will affuredly be my endeavour, by as much variety as is confiftent with that object, to procure entertainment for my readers as well as instruction: yet I feel myself compelled to hazard the confeffion, that fuch of my readers as make the latter the paramount motive for their encouragement of the Friend, will receive the largest portion of the former. I have heard it faid of a young lady,—" if you are told, before you see her, that she is handsome, you will think her ordinary; if that she is ordinary, you will think her handfome." I may perhaps apply this remark to my own effays. If inftruction and the increase of honourable motives and virtuous impulfes be chiefly expected, there will, I would fain hope, be felt no deficiency of amufement; but I muft fubmit to be thought dull by those who seek amusement only. The Friend will be distinguifhed from its celebrated predeceffors, the Spectator and the like, as to its plan, chiefly by the greater length of the separate effays, by their closer connection with each other, and by the predominance of one object, and the common bearing of all to one end.

It would be fuperfluous to state, that I shall receive with gratitude any communications addreffed to me: but it may be proper to say, that all remarks and criticifms in praise or dispraise of my contemporaries (to which, however, nothing but a strong sense of a moral interest will ever lead me) will be written by myself only; both because I cannot have the fame certainty concerning the motives of others, and because I deem it fit, that fuch strictures fhould always be attended by the name of their author, and that one and the same person should be folely responsible for the insertion as well as compofition of the fame.