INTRODUCTION. It was the known intention of Bayard Taylor to prepare the material which composes the following work for publication. A partial arrangement for that purpose had been made between him and the present publishers. Had he lived to complete his plan, doubtless the form of the matter would have been changed, by adapting it to the reader rather than the hearer, and the scope of the whole work would have been enlarged and, here and there, elaborated, so as to complete a design which was necessarily restricted by the brief limits of time prescribed to a course of lectures. However much additional interest might have been given to the work, had Taylor lived to carry out his purpose, the editors felt themselves to be unauthorized to attempt changes so serious, which might have left upon the volume the impress of their literary style and opinions rather than those of the actual author. Nothing beyond the corrections of verbal errors and of over |