PREFACE
When publishing, last year, the first collected edition of the poems of James Thomson, I expressed a hope that it might soon be followed by a collection of his prose writings. I hoped then that there would have been a somewhat more general welcome accorded to the poems than has proved to be the case, for though the zeal of Thomson's admirers leaves nothing to be desired, it must yet be confessed that their number is at present rather limited. It is, moreover, rather unfortunate that to the general public he is still known almost exclusively as the author of "The City of Dreadful Night," so that it is difficult to gain a hearing for him except as a poet, notwithstanding the remarkable excellence of his prose writings. It is the desire, however, of his publishers to issue a collected edition of his prose works which shall comprise all that seems to be of permanent value in his remains. Such an edition, if carried out as intended, will extend to four volumes of original matter, and another containing his translations from Leopardi and Novalis. The book now issued is intended to form the first volume
