TO THE PUBLIC.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,

I FEEL conscious that some apology is due to you, for presuming to intrude the following pages on your notice; I therefore proceed to state honestly my motives for so doing.

In the first place, then, as many of my little detached pieces have occasionally appeared in one or other of our most respectable diurnal prints on both sides of the Tweed, and I hope I may venture to say, at least at times with some little approbation,-I felt assured that you would allow, and without accusing me of any very violent vanity, that I might be desirous of seeing them properly and regularly arranged in a collective state.

In the second place, as many of them have had the good fortune to run rapidly through various editions in manuscript, and too often not altogether to the credit of the Author, I had the feelings so natural to all parents, namely, an anxious desire that my ricketty brats should at least stand upon their own legs.

In the third place, the so often repeated kind solicitations of, I fear, my too partial, though numerous and respectable Friends and Patrons, overpowered my timidity, and I may with truth say, at last," by laboursome petition, wrung from me my slow leave.”

Lastly, Long experience engendered hope, that the same generous Public which had so often listened to me with indulgence, might still cherish a favourable impression towards me,-and thus be, in some small degree, prepared to receive graciously, perhaps, the last effort of a Veteran Actor to amuse them.

Whatever critiques my presumption may excite, I shall bow to with becoming diffidence and respect; nor shali I at all conceive that I have been treated harshly, because my reviewers, if any should deem me worthy of such an honour, exercise their talents and their taste in exposing my insufficiency; though I own they may make me feelingly alive to a sense of shame for my temerity. -I am,

LADIES AND Gentlemen,

Your respectful and obedient servant,

STEPHEN GEORGE KEMBLE.

NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE,

Dec. 29. 1808.