too long hidden from their eyes under a veil of ecclesiastical glosses, and persuade them of the momentous considerations appertaining to its discovery. My present book is the result, over which I have spared no pains nor care; and concerning the matter of it, I have no more to say than this brief warning: that they who would journey with a pilgrim on a quest for truth must themselves possess an honest and hearty desire to achieve it, and must start with him from a common or neighbourly ground, lest afterwards they forsake his guidance, because they did not mark his setting forth. As to the form of it, however, I have two notes to make: one is that during the years in which my waking hours were dominated by the majestic influence of Job all my reading became under contribution to that idea, so that the superfluity of quotation in which I have indulged is not so much by way of authority, as by necessity of illustration; and the other is that I hope devout taste will not be offended by my avoidance of capital initials in pronouns referring to the Deity, in which practice I have been content to follow the example of our translators of the Bible. Lastly, no perfunctory observance of etiquette, but a very lively gratitude constrains me to acknowledge the great assistance that I have received from the careful suggestions of Mr. William Watson, Mr. E. H. Coleridge, Señor I. Albeniz, and Mr. Frederic Chapman. |