The first edition of the following pages was prepared as a Lecture for the Islington Protestant Institute. The delivery of that Lecture has led to a more careful study of the subject, so that in this second edition there is a considerable quantity of additional information, which I trust may be found important.

One gentleman has done me the honour of noticing the first edition, and publishing a pamphlet in order to show that the constitution quoted on page 32 should be rendered as the reader will find it there. It is a matter of great regret to me that he should have thought it right to say of the remainder of the lecture, that “statements which few surely can believe, will, he trusts, produce in the minds of readers an effect the very reverse of that intended.” If he had pointed out any inaccuracy, I should have been only too happy to correct it; and any proof of error on my part would have been much more satisfactory to his readers than a general and unsupported insinuation. In the present edition he will find, I believe, a clear reference to every important extract; and abundant opportunity is afforded him, if possible, to disprove my statements.

E. H.

Ramsgate, Feb. 12, 1852.