Produced by Irma Spehar, Christine D. and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) MICROCOSMOGRAPHY; OR, A Piece of the World discovered; IN ESSAYS AND CHARACTERS. MICROCOSMOGRAPHY; OR, A PIECE OF THE WORLD DISCOVERED; IN ESSAYS AND CHARACTERS By JOHN EARLE, D.D. _A Reprint of Dr. Bliss's Edition of 1811._ WITH A PREFACE AND SUPPLEMENTARY APPENDIX By S. T. IRWIN. Bristol: PUBLISHED BY W. CROFTON HEMMONS. London: SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT & CO., LTD. TO THE MEMORY OF THE REVEREND DAVID WRIGHT, "THE GRAVE DIVINE" OF THESE PAGES, WHOSE NAME WILL LIVE IN BRISTOL AS LONG AS MEN CARE FOR BEAUTY OF CHARACTER, RICHNESS OF THOUGHT, OR DISTINCTION OF SPEECH, THIS BRISTOL REPRINT IS INSCRIBED. "From the contagion of the world's slow stain He was secure." PREFACE. It may be reasonably asked why Dr. Bliss's[A] edition of the Microcosmography should require a preface, and the answer is that it does not require one. It would be difficult to have a more scholarly, more adequate, more self-sufficing edition of a favourite book. Almost everything that helps the elucidation of the text, almost everything about Bishop Earle that could heighten our affection for him (there is nothing known to his disparagement) is to be found here.[B] And affection for the editor is conciliated by the way. It is not only his standard of equipment that secures this--a standard that might have satisfied Mark Pattison[C]--but also the painstaking love revealed in it, which, like every other true love, whether of men or books, will not give of that which costs it nothing. And, as a further title to our regard, Dr. Bliss is amusing at his own expense, and compares himself to Earle's "critic," who swells books into folios with his comments. Not that this humorous self-depreciation is to be pressed; for, unlike that critic, he is no "troublesome vexer of the dead." But though there is no need of a preface, I have two excuses for writing one.