o them as to ourselves, especially when they have
perused the following affecting narrative. It was composed for the
purpose of being appended to an edition of the Confessions in a separate
volume, which is already before the public, and we have reprinted it
entire, that our subscribers may be in possession of the whole of this
extraordinary history.

* * * * *

The proprietors of this little work having determined on reprinting it,
some explanation seems called for, to account for the non-appearance of a
third part promised in the _London Magazine_ of December last; and the
more so because the proprietors, under whose guarantee that promise was
issued, might otherwise be implicated in the blame--little or
much--attached to its non-fulfilment. This blame, in mere justice, the
author takes wholly upon himself. What may be the exact amount of the
guilt which he thus appropriates is a very dark question to his own
judgment, and not much illuminated by any of the masters in casuistry
whom he has consulted on the occasion. On the one hand it seems
generally agreed that a promise is binding in the inverse ratio of the
numbers to whom it is made; for which reason it is that we see many
persons break promises without scruple that are made to a whole nation,
who keep their faith religiously in all private engagements, breaches of
promise towards the stronger party being committed at a man's own peril;
on the other hand, the only parties interested in the promises of an
author are his readers, and these it is a point of modesty in any author
to believe as few as possible--or perhaps only one, in which case any
promise imposes a sanctity of moral obligation which it is shocking to
think of. Casuistry dismissed, however, the author throws himself on the
indulgent consideration of all who may conceive themselves aggrieved by
his delay, in the following account of his own condition from the end of
last year, when the engagement was made, up nearly to the present time.
For any purpose of self-excuse it might be sufficient to say that
intolerable bodily suffering had totally disabled him for almost any
exertion of mind, more especially for such as demands and presupposes a
pleasurable and genial state of feeling; but, as a case that may by
possibility contribute a trifle to the medical history of opium, in a
further stage of its action than can often have been brought under the
notice of professional men, he has judged that it mi