It is the privilege of those who are placed in that elevated situation to which your Grace is an ornament, that they give honour to the person upon whom they confer a favour. When I dedicate to your Grace the fruits of many years, and speak of my debt to the House of Rutland, I feel that I am not without pride in the confession nor insensible to the honour which such gratitude implies. Forty years have elapsed since this debt commenced. On my entrance into the cares of life, and while contending with its difficulties, a Duke and Duchess of Rutland observed and protected me--in my progress a Duke and Duchess of Rutland favoured and assisted me--and, when I am retiring from the world, a Duke and Duchess of Rutland receive my thanks, and accept my offering. All, even in this world of mutability, is not change: I have experienced unvaried favour--I have felt undiminished respect. With the most grateful remembrance of what I owe, and the most sincere conviction of the little I can return, I present these pages to your Grace’s acceptance, and beg leave to subscribe myself, May it please your Grace, With respect and gratitude, Your Grace’s Most obedient and devoted Servant, GEORGE CRABBE. _Trowbridge_, _June_, 1819. PREFACE. If I did not fear that it would appear to my readers like arrogancy, or if it did not seem to myself indecorous to send two volumes of considerable magnitude from the press without preface or apology, without one petition for the reader’s attention, or one plea for the writer’s defects, I would most willingly spare myself an address of this kind, and more especially for these reasons: first, because a preface is a part of a book seldom honoured by a reader’s perusal; secondly, because it is both difficult and distressing to write that which we think will be disregarded; and thirdly, because I do not conceive that I am called upon for such introductory matter by any of the motives which usually influence an author when he composes his prefatory address.