through the kindness of
Mr. Sheridan. In conclusion, I may observe, that while I was composing
this play, I wrote a short essay, illustrative of that constitution and
those tendencies of human nature, which make the apparently _motiveless_
actions of bad men intelligible to careful observers. This was partly
done with reference to the character of Oswald, and his persevering
endeavour to lead the man he disliked into so heinous a crime; but still
more to preserve in my distinct remembrance what I had observed of
transitions in character, and the reflections I had been led to make,
during the time I was a witness of the changes through which the French
Revolution passed.

25. The following is the 'short printed note' mentioned in above:

This Dramatic Piece, as noticed in its title-page, was composed in
1795-6. It lay nearly from that time till within the last two or three
months unregarded among my papers, without being mentioned even to my
most intimate friends. Having, however, impressions upon my mind which
made me unwilling to destroy the MS., I determined to undertake the
responsibility of publishing it during my own life, rather than impose
upon my successors the task of deciding its fate. Accordingly it has
been revised with some care; but, as it was at first written, and is now
published, without any view to its exhibition upon the stage, not the
slightest alteration has been made in the conduct of the story, or the
composition of the characters; above all, in respect to the two leading
Persons of the Drama, I felt no inducement to make any change. The study
of human nature suggests this awful truth, that, as in the trial to
which life subjects us, sin and crime are apt to start from their very
opposite qualities, so are there no limits to the hardening of the
heart, and the perversion of the understanding to which they may carry
their slaves. During my long residence in France, while the Revolution
was rapidly advancing to its extreme of wickedness, I had frequent
opportunities of being an eye-witness of this process, and it was while
that knowledge was fresh upon my memory that the Tragedy of the
_Borderers_ was composed.

26. Later, this was prefixed: 'Readers already acquainted with my Poems
will recognise, in the following composition, some eight or ten lines
which I have not scrupled to retain in the places where they originally
stood. It is proper, however, to add, that they would not have been used