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HIS MOST GRACIOUS MAJESTY

GEORGE IV.

KING OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND.

SIRE,

I SHOULD not have presumed to lay before your Majesty any lucubration of mine, had ï not been for some years connected with that department of literature in the University of Cambridge, which owed its foundation to the munificence of one of your Majesty's royal predecessors, and is continued by your Majesty's bounty; the Professorship of Modern History.

In addition to the annual course of Lectures which I have been in the habit of delivering to the members of the University

of Cambridge, on the languages and literature of modern Europe, I have turned my attention to the discoveries recently made in decyphering and methodizing the sacred writings of ancient Egypt, induced by the lively interest which this subject has excited in almost every part of the civilized world.

I now venture to lay before your Majesty the first fruits of my labours; they are the tribute of my devotion to your Majesty, and my duty; they are the imperfect offerings of my gratitude for the peace and comfort which I have enjoyed under your Majesty's Government. England became my refuge during the revolutionary storms which agitated my own country, and ever since that period it has been the land of my adoption.

Deign, Sire, to accept the following pages with that gracious condescension, by which your Majesty's character has been at all times so eminently distinguished.

It is not for me to invade the province of the historian, or to attempt a description of the signal events, both at home and abroad, which have so happily marked the progress of your Majesty's auspicious reign.

Let me, however, be permitted to bear my humble testimony to the encouragement and protection which your Majesty has invariably afforded to the arts which adorn, and to the institutions which improve, as they enlighten, society.

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