for publication.

Having obtained possession of the volume, we lost no time till we
had made ourselves master of its contents. It appeared to consist
of a series of detached notes, which, together, formed something
analogous to an historical view of the different important and
interesting scenes and affairs the Provost had been personally
engaged in during his long magisterial life. We found, however that
the concatenation of the memoranda which he had made of public
transactions, was in several places interrupted by the insertion of
matter not in the least degree interesting to the nation at large;
and that, in arranging the work for the press, it would be requisite
and proper to omit many of the notes and much of the record, in
order to preserve the historical coherency of the narrative. But in
doing this, the text has been retained inviolate, in so much that
while we congratulate the world on the addition we are thus enabled
to make to the stock of public knowledge, we cannot but felicitate
ourselves on the complete and consistent form into which we have so
successfully reduced our precious materials; the separation of
which, from the dross of personal and private anecdote, was a task
of no small difficulty; such, indeed, as the editors only of the
autographic memoirs of other great men can duly appreciate.



CHAPTER I--THE FORECAST



It must be allowed in the world, that a man who has thrice reached