It has been the fortune of the author through life, that the Volumes which he has published have grown for the most part out of the duties which lay upon him, or out of the circumstances of the moment. Rarely has he been master of his own studies.

The present collection of Lectures and Essays, written by him while Rector of the Catholic University of Ireland, is certainly not an exception to this remark. Rather, it requires the above consideration to be kept in view, as an apology for the want of keeping which is apparent between its separate portions, some of them being written for public delivery, others with the privileged freedom of anonymous compositions.

However, whatever be the inconvenience which such varieties in tone and character may involve, the author cannot affect any compunction for having pursued the illustration of one and the same important subject-matter, with which he had been put in charge, by such methods, graver or lighter, so that they were lawful, as successively came to his hand.

November, 1858.