WHEN I enjoyed the contentment of Solitude in your pleasant walks and
gardens at Lavington the last summer, I reviewed several scattered
papers which had lain by me for several years; and then presumed to
think, that if they were put together, they might be somewhat
entertaining: I therefore digested them there in this order, in which
I now present them to your Lordship.
The matter of this collection is beyond human reach: we being
miserably in the dark, as to the economy of the invisible world, which
knows what we do, or incline to, and works upon our passions and
sometimes is so kind as to afford us a glimpse of its prescience.