ON RHETORIC AND BELLES LETTRES. By HUGH BLAIR, D.D. & F. R. S. Ed. ONE OF THE MINISTERS OF THE HIGH CHURCH, AND IN THE UNIVERSITY, OF EDINBURGH. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. I. THE FOURTH EDITION. LONDON: PRINTED FOR A. STRAHAN; T. CADELL, IN THE STRAND; M DCC XC. K1259. PREFA CE. THE HE following LECTURES were read in the University of Edinburgh, for Twenty-four years. The publication of them, at prefent, was not altogether a matter of choice. Imperfect Copies of them in Manufcript, from notes taken by Students who heard them read, were firft privately handed about; and afterwards frequently exposed to public fale. When the Author faw them circulate fo currently, as even to be quoted in print*, and found himself often threatened with furreptitious publications of them, he judged it to be high time that they should proceed from his own hand, rather than come into public view under fome very defective and erroneous form. THEY were originally defigned for the initiation of Youth into the ftudy of Belles Biographia Britannica. Article, ADDISON. |