In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. BOSTON: HENRY W. DUTTON AND SON, PRINTERS, 33 and 35 Congress Street. PREFACE. ABOUT one half of these short Essays have appeared during the last few years in one of our daily papers. I have found in writing them some little relief from severe domestic affliction, and have sought employment for leisure hours in preparing them for publication, in the hope that if they did not instruct, they might help to while away some leisure hours of the reader. I can hardly claim for them more than that they may contain some suggestions fitted to excite reflection and investigation on the part of the reader, or furnish a few texts from which others may preach sermons. In the articles on Free Trade, I have included two published in 1855, and of these I have only to say that I have seen nothing to change the opinions then expressed, but everything to strengthen and confirm them. J. L. B. (stevens July 71910 1* |