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DEDICATORY EPISTLE.
xiii

tended over the neighbouring village, where the attorney is now a man of more importance than the lord of the manor.

While I own the force of these objections, I must confess, at the same time, that they do not appear to me to be altogether insurmountable. The scantiness of materials is indeed a formidable difficulty; but no one knows better than Dr Dryasdust, that to those deeply read in antiquity, hints concerning the private life of our ancestors lie scattered through our various historians, bearing, indeed, a slender proportion to the other matters of which they treat, but still, when collected together, sufficient to throw considerable light upon the vie privée of our forefathers; indeed, I am convinced, that however I myself might fail in the ensuing attempt, yet, with more labour in collecting, or more skill in using, the materials within

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