htful
toils_), and this arises wholly from the almost insurmountable
difficulties which the anxieties of to-day oppose to my completion
of the great work, the form and materials of which it has been the
employment of the best and most genial hours of the last twenty years
to mature and collect.

If I could but have a tolerably numerous audience to my first, or
first and second Lectures on the _History of Philosophy_, I should
entertain a strong hope of success, because I know that these lectures
will be found by far the most interesting and _entertaining_ of any
that I have yet delivered, independent of the more permanent interest
of rememberable instruction. Few and unimportant would the errors of
men be, if they did but know, first, _what they themselves meant_;
and, secondly, what the _words_ mean by which they attempt to convey
their meaning, and I can conceive no subject so well fitted to
exemplify the mode and the importance of these two points as the
History of Philosophy, treated as in the scheme of these lectures.

TO THE SAME

_The Great Work described_

_Jan._ 1821.

... I have already the _written_ materials and contents, requiring
only to be put together from the loose papers and commonplace or
memorandum books, and needing no other change, whether of omission,
addition, or correction, than the mere act of arranging, and the
opportunity of seeing the whole collectively bring with them of course
(1) Characteristics of Shakespeare's dramatic works, with a critical
review of each play; together with a relative and comparative critique
on the kind and degree of the merits and demerits of the dramatic
works of Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, and Massinger. The
History of the English Drama; the accidental advantages it afforded
to Shakespeare, without in the least detracting from the perfect
originality or proper creation of the Shakespearian Drama; the
contradistinction of the latter from the Greek Drama, and its still
remaining _uniqueness_, with the causes of this, from the combined
influences of Shakespeare himself, as man, poet, philosopher, and
finally, by conjunction of all these, dramatic poet; and of the age,
events, manners, and state of the English language. This work, with
every art of compression, amounts to three volumes of about five
hundred pages each. (2) Philosophical Analysis of the Genius and Works
of Dante, Spenser, Milton, Cervantes, and Calderon, with similar, but
more comp