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THE FRIEND:

A SERIES OF ESSAYS

TO AID IN THE FORMATION OF FIXED PRINCIPLES IN
POLITICS, MORALS, AND RELIGION,

WITH

LITERARY AMUSEMENTS INTERSPERSED:

BY SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.

WITH THE AUTHOR'S LAST CORRECTIONS AND AN APPENDIX, AND WITH
A SYNOPTICAL TABLE OF THE CONTENTS OF THE WORK.

Now for the writing of this werke,
I, who am a lonesome clerke,
Purposed for to write a book

After the world, that whilome took
Its course in oldè days long passed:
But for men sayn, it is now lassed
In worser plight than it was tho,
I thought me for to touch also
The world which neweth every day—
So as I can, so as I may,

Albeit I sickness have and pain,
And long have had, yet would I fain
Do my mind's hest and besiness,
That in some part, so as I guess,
The gentle mind may be advised.

GOWER, Pro. to the Confess. Amantis.

* FRIEND! were an author privileged to name his own judge,—in addition to moral and intellectual competence I should look round for some man, whose knowledge and opinions had for the greater part been acquired experimentally; and the practical habits of whose life had put him on his guard with respect to all speculative reasoning, without rendering him insensible to the desirableness of principles more secure than the shifting rules and theories generalized from observations merely empirical, or unconscious in how many departments of knowledge, and with how large a portion even of professional men, such principles are still a desideratum.. I would select, too, one who felt kindly, nay, even partially, toward me; but one whose partiality had its strongest foundations in hope, and more prospective than retrospective would make him quick-sighted in the detection, and unreserved in the exposure, of the deficiencies and defects of each present work, in the anticipation of a more developed future. In you, honoured friend! I have found all these requisites combined and realized: and the improvement, which these essays have derived from your judgment and judicious suggestions, would, of itself, have justified me in accompanying them with a

* Dedication to the second edition.-Ed.

T

PILİK HUKTOWAŁ of the same. But knowing, as you canis, rit. Row, that I ow: I great measure the power of namy written a al your medical skill, and 1 tk characterista good seas which dreaed its exer201 I my penal, and whatever I may have written in mye ven To the mimens of your society and to the uniy pools of our dismented attachment-knowing, Tol. in how entr & smart with your feelings in this resper tie part of your name has hended the affeczionata regards of a sis dangine with almost a mother's vuchin, and inverted solicitudes alike for my benki, meres, mi zanęty —YOL VII Dot, I trust, De pazel-TVI ongi na. I am sure to be surprised—