PREFACE.

For the power to make the greater part of this selection from his prose writings, the Author has to thank the proprietors of the Edinburgh and Westminster Reviews, of the New Monthly Magazine, of Tait, and Ainsworth, and the Monthly Chronicle. The courtesy which he experienced from all these gentlemen, and the instant cordiality of those with whom he was best acquainted, merit his warmest acknowledgments.

He has little to add, except that he has taken the opportunity of making a few corrections; and that he hopes the sincerity with which he writes everything, grave or gay, will procure him the usual indulgence for the defects that remain.

The title of the book, though a peculiar, is not a forced one. The reader will see that "Women," upon their own grounds, form an essential portion of its contents; and the word suggested itself as soon as the book was thought of. The name of the heroine might almost as well have been omitted, when the