These essays, contributed to The London Magazine in 1820, have never been republished in their original form. A great part of them was included in the so-called ‘second edition’ of A View of the English Stage (see the bibliographical note to that work, ante, p. 170), but the essays were cut up and re-arranged, and many passages were left out altogether. In the present edition, all the essays are printed verbatim from The London Magazine, except that a part of Essay No. VI. and the whole of Essay No. X., being plainly the work of another hand, have been omitted.