Engrar al by Riley from a Drawing by Larena in the Possession or D" Batty Willow Godwin Exy? Pub by Vaner & Hoed, Poultry, 31, Jan 1805 ON MAN, HIS NATURE, PRODUCTIONS, AND DISCOVERIES. INTERSPERSED WITH SOME PARTICULARS RESPECTING BY WILLIAM GODWIN. Oh, the blood more stirs To rouse a lion, than to start a hare! SHAKESPEAR. LONDON: EFFINGHAM WILSON, ROYAL EXCHANGE. 1831. PREFACE. IN the ensuing volume I have attempted to give a defined and permanent form to a variety of thoughts, which have occurred to my mind in the course of thirty-four years, it being so long since I published a volume, entitled, the Enquirer,thoughts, which, if they have presented themselves to other men, have, at least so far as I am aware, never been given to the public through the medium of the press. During a part of this period I had remained to a considerable degree unoccupied in my character of an author, and had delivered little to the press that bore my name. And I beg the reader to believe, that, since I entered in 1791 upon that which may be considered as my vocation in life, I have scarcely in any instance contributed a page to any periodical miscellany. My mind has been constitutionally meditative; and I should not have felt satisfied, if I had not |