place books, both incidents and observations, whatever had occurred to me from without, and all the flux and reflux of my mind within itself. The number of these notices and their tendency, miscellaneous as they were, to one common end ('quid sumus et quid futuri gignimur,' what we are and what we are born to become; and thus from the end of our being to deduce its proper objects), first encouraged me to undertake the weekly essay, of which you will consider this letter as the prospectus. Not only did the plan seem to accord better than any other with the nature of my own mind, both in its strength and in its weakness; but conscious that, in upholding some principles both of taste and philosophy, adopted by the great men of Europe, from the middle of the fifteenth till toward the close of the seventeenth century. I must run counter to many prejudices of many of my readers (for old faith is often modern heresy). I perceived too in a periodical essay, the most likely means of winning instead of forcing my way. Supposing truth on my side, the shock of the first day might be so far lessened by reflections of the succeeding days, as to procure for my next week's essay a less hostile reception, than it would have met with, had it been only the next chapter of a present volume. I hoped to disarm the mind of those feelings, which preclude conviction by contempt, and as it were, fling the door in the face of reasoning, by a 'presumption' of its absurdity. A motion too for honourable ambition was supplied by the fact, that every periodical paper of the kind now attempted, which had been conducted with zeal and ability, was not only well received at the time, but has become permanently, and in the best sense of the word, popular. By honourable ambition, I mean the strong desire to be useful, aided by the wish to be generally acknowledged to have been so. As I feel myself actuated in no ordinary degree by this desire, so the hope of realizing it appears less and less presumptuous to me, since I have received from men of highest rank and established character in the republic of letters, not only strong encouragements as to my own fitness for the undertaking, but likewise promises of support from their own stores. The 'object' of 'The Friend' briefly and generally expressed is--to uphold those truths and those merits against the caprices of fashion, and such pleasures, as either depend on transitory and accidental causes, or are pursued from less worthy impulses. The chief 'subjects' of my own essays will be:-- The true and sole ground of morality, or virtue, as distinguished from prudence. The origin and growth of moral impulses, as distinguished from external and immediate motives.