DIALOGUES ON NATURAL AND REVEALED RELIGION: WITH A PRELIMINARY INQUIRY; AN APPENDIX, CONTAINING SUPPLEMENTAL BIBL BY THE REV. ROBERT MOREHEAD, D.D., F.R.S.E., Formerly of Balliol College, Oxford, one of the Ministers of St Paul's Chapel, York Place, Edinburgh, PUBLISHED BY OLIVER & BOYD, EDINBURGH; MDCCCXXX. DEDICATION. то FRANCIS JEFFREY, Esq. DEAN OF THE FACULTY OF ADVOCATES. MY DEAR FRIEND, Ir may appear singular that I should have lived so many years in the world, in the course of which, too, I have published several books, and that I should not till now have dedicated one to you, the friend with whom my earliest recollections are associated, in whose society the chief and happiest part of these years has been passed, whose genius and studies, more than any other, have given a bent and impulse to my own, and to whom I am indebted for more acts of kindness than, almost, to any other individual. One reason of this might be, the kind of works of which I was the author, and which naturally looked for the patronage of names distinguished or elevated in the Church. But this, I believe, would not have greatly weighed with me, had not the reign which you so long held at the head of our critical literature made it somewhat a delicate matter to address you on the mere footing of friendship or admiration. I should either have seemed to court your favour as a critic, or I should have precluded myself from obtaining it, by rendering you a judge who necessarily must have withdrawn from giving sentence in any cause in which I was engaged. That would not have been quite prudent; and I cannot but recollect, that the only volume which I have given to the world, that can be called successful, would not, in all likelihood, have been so, had not you been at liberty to bear the handsome testimony you did in its favour. |