ESSAYS AND POEMS, WITH A BRIEF AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. BY J. A. LEATHERLAND, Author of "Courtesy," ONE OF THE CASSELL PRIZE ESSAYS. LONDON: W. TWEEDIE, STRAND. LEICESTER: PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY J. WADDINGTON. MDCCCLXII. 270. f. 125. As a leasing Bemembrance OF THE HAPPINESS EXPERIENCED BY THE FAVOURABLE NOTICE OF ONE WHOSE ELOQUENCE HAS BEEN THE ADMIRATION OF THOUSANDS, AND WHOSE GOODNESS OF HEART IS EQUAL TO HIS HIGH MENTAL ENDOWMENTS, THIS VOLUME, From the pen of an Invalid Artizan, IS, To SIR FITZROY KELLY, Q. C., M. P., (With his special permission) MOST RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED, BY THE AUTHOR. PREFACE. THIS HIS little Volume is submitted to the public with much diffidence. The prose pieces are altogether different from the light reading now so popular, and the author fears they may be thought too meagre and sketchy for the proper development of the grave topics discussed, his aim in writing them, being rather to furnish suggestive hints, than exhaustive reasonings. The conditions moreover under which most of them were penned were not such as to allow of any expansive treatment. The papers on "Household Economy," "Prose Fictions" and the "Immateriality of the Mind" are Prize Essays, and in their treatment the author was placed under restrictions as to length; and in dealing with the other topics, he was circumscribed in the same way by preparatory conditions. Should however these pencilled outlines be favourably received, he may perhaps fill up the picture at a future day, especially as regards the subject-to him a favorite one-of the Human Mind. The gratifying notices which some of the papers have received from eminent literary men, and the |