ble opinion he
merited, and certainly obtained with those best acquainted with his
extensive learning and information, a considerable rank amongst the
eminent persons who have adorned the age in which we have lived, and of
whose services the public have been deprived by a premature death.

From these causes little progress had been made in our work when I was
deprived of my coadjutor. But from that time you can testify of me that
I have not been idle. You can bear witness to the confused state in
which the materials that compose the present volume came into my hands.
The difficulty of reading many of the manuscripts, obscured by
innumerable erasures, corrections, interlineations, and marginal
insertions, would perhaps have been insuperable to any person less
conversant in the manuscripts of Mr. Burke than myself. To this
difficulty succeeded that of selecting from several detached papers,
written upon the same subject and the same topics, such as appeared to
contain the author's last thoughts and emendations. When these
difficulties were overcome, there still remained, in many instances,
that of assigning its proper place to many detached members of the same
piece, where no direct note of connection had been made. These
circumstances, whilst they will lead the reader not to expect, in the
cases to which they apply, the finished productions of Mr. Burke,
imposed upon me a task of great delicacy and difficulty,--namely, that
of deciding upon the publication of any, and which, of these unfinished
pieces. I must here beg permission of you, and Lord Fitzwilliam, to
inform the public, that in the execution of this part of my duty I
requested and obtained your assistance.

Our first care was to ascertain, from such evidence, internal and
external, as the manuscripts themselves afforded, what pieces appeared
to have been at any time intended by the author for publication. Our
next was to select such as, though not originally intended for
publication, yet appeared to contain matter that might contribute to the
gratification and instruction of the public. Our last object was to
determine what degree of imperfection and incorrectness in papers of
either of these classes ought or ought not to exclude them from a place
in the present volume. This was, doubtless, the most nice and arduous
part of our undertaking. The difficulty, however, was, in our minds,
greatly diminished by our conviction that the reputation of our author
stood