ance of it, with additional
observations, to the public in some other form, but never found leisure
or inclination to finish it.

5. A Letter on the Affairs of Ireland, written in the year 1797. The
name of the person to whom this letter was addressed does not appear on
the manuscript; nor has the letter been found to which it was written as
an answer. And as the gentleman whom he employed as an amanuensis is not
now living, no discovery of it can be made, unless this publication of
the letter should produce some information respecting it, that may
enable us in a future volume to gratify, on this point, the curiosity of
the reader. The letter was dictated, as he himself tells us, from his
couch at Bath; to which place he had gone, by the advice of his
physicians, in March, 1797. His health was now rapidly declining; the
vigor of his mind remained unimpaired. This, my dear friend, was, I
believe, the last letter dictated by him on public affairs:--here ended
his political labors.

XV. Fragments and Notes of Speeches in Parliament.

1. Speech on the Acts of Uniformity.

2. Speech on a Bill for the Relief of Protestant Dissenters.

3. Speech on the Petition of the Unitarians.

4. Speech on the Middlesex Election.

5. Speech on a Bill for shortening the Duration of Parliaments.

6. Speech on the Reform of the Representation in Parliament.

7. Speech on a Bill for explaining the Powers of Juries in Prosecutions
for Libels.

*7. Letter relative to the same subject.

8. Speech on a Bill for repealing the Marriage Act.

9. Speech on a Bill to quiet the Possessions of the Subject against
Dormant Claims of the Church.

With respect to these fragments, I have already stated the reasons by
which we were influenced in our determination to publish them. An
account of the state in which these manuscripts were found is given in
the note prefixed to this article.

XVI. Hints for an Essay on the Drama.

This fragment was perused in manuscript by a learned and judicious
critic, our late lamented friend, Mr. Malone; and under the protection
of his opinion we can feel no hesitation in submitting it to the
judgment of the public.

XVII. We are now come to the concluding article of this volume,--the
Essay on the History of England.

At what time of the author's life it was written cannot now be exactly
ascertained; but it was certainly begun before he had attained the age
of twenty-seven years, as it appears from an entr