2137- EIGHTEENTH CENTURY STUDIES. ESSAYS. BY FRANCIS HITCHMAN, AUTHOR OF THE PUBLIC LIFE OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD," ETC., ETC. London: SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE, & RIVINGTON, CROWN BUILDINGS, 188, FLEET STREET. 1881. [All rights reserved.] Dedication. TO HER TO WHOSE UNFLAGGING DEVOTION I OWE MY LIFE, AND ALL THAT SWEETENS IT, TO MY WIFE, 1 DEDICATE THIS LITTLE BOOK, IN ESPECIAL MEMORY OF 1871. LONDON, January, 1881. F. H. PREFACE. SOME half-dozen of the chapters which make up this volume have already appeared in various magazines, and I have to offer my thanks to Messrs. Smith, Elder, and Co.; Messrs. Richard Bentley and Sons; and Mr. John Maxwell, for their readily accorded permission to reprint them. The remaining Essays see the light for the first time, and I venture to hope that they will be found not less worthy of attention than those which have already been printed, and concerning which my editors have been pleased to speak very kindly. It will probably be observed that one or two of the Essays deal with times which are not strictly those of the Eighteenth Century. Macaulay somewhere makes the remark that the Nineteenth Century did not begin until 1830, and I must ask the reader to remember that fact in dealing with this volume of "Eighteenth Century Studies." F. H. |