PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

The first edition of this work appeared anonymously. Its rapid sale and the favourable manner in which “The Rough Sketch,” has been received induce the Author, as a mark of respect and gratitude to an indulgent Public, to affix, his name to this second impression. In doing so, he begs leave to apologize for the typographical errors found in the first edition, and which he can only correct in that which is now issued, by means of an errata. These faults may, perhaps, be pardoned, when it is known that the Author was in the most distant part of Italy at the time of the first publication, and that most of the sheets which compose the present impression, were struck off previously to his return.

In reading the following pages the Public will also have the goodness to remember the period at which they were written. When the Author speaks of Bonaparte, he speaks of him in other days. In May, 1802, when these letters were concluded, the First Consul was the elected first magistrate of France, the professed friend of England, and the acknowledged pacificator of Europe. He had not at that time overturned the form of government which he had solemnly sworn to maintain, by assuming for life the reins of power. He had not then violated the laws of nations and the rights of a free, virtuous, and independent people by the subjugation of Switzerland. He had not then insulted his Majesty and the British nation in the person of our ambassador. He had not yet dared to ask for changes in the most valuable and purest parts of our excellent constitution, nor had he sunk the dignity of his character by a conversation which at once betrayed his vanity, rashness, and unbounded ambition. In one word, the laurels of Marengo were yet unfaded. He was then a great man. Without enquiring what he now is, one may be permitted to apply to him what Virgil said of the Trojan hero after his defeat:

Upper Seymour Street, Sept. 21, 1803.