PRINTED FOR E. WILLIAMS, 11, STRAND, BOOKSELLER

TO THE KING AND ROYAL FAMILY, AND TO

THE CYMMRODORION SOCIETY.

་

THE publication of these TRANSACTIONS seems to invite, if not to demand, a few preliminary observations on the nature of the work, or rather, it may be said, on that of the Institution, under whose aupices it is offered to the public. And this appears the more necessary, as the Memoirs of Literary or Philosophical Societies are toc often considered, from a hasty decision on the part of readers in general, to embrace only such technical discussions or abstruse researches, as present few or no attractions beyond the immediate circle to which they owe their existence. This, however, is a popular error, and, like most others, has its origin in that indolent proneness of our nature to delight more in superficial inquiries than in those investigations which demand any unusual degree of labour or thought. We glide with pleasure over the surface of that intellectual ocean, the treasures of whose abyss we dread nevertheless to explore. Hence it is that such publications as those above noticed are regarded by the generality of the world as too profound or too dry to excite that interest, without which no literary inquiry can be successfully pursued.

If this be the prevailing prejudice with respect to the pro