The Publishers avail themselves of an unexpected opportunity of printing from the original MSS., by permission, the Liber Amoris, eleven letters from Hazlitt to P. G. Patmore upon the subject, a letter from Sarah Walker to Hazlitt, the Diary of Mrs. Hazlitt in Scotland (1822), and five letters from that lady to her son and sister-in-law written between 1824 and 1831. In the text of the Liber Amoris many variations from the printed one of 1823 occur; the correspondence with Patmore, as here given, constitutes the earliest attempt to exhibit it as it left the hands of the writer, since in those works, where it has been previously published or quoted, it either assumes the form of extracts, or is so out of harmony with the autograph letters themselves as to be often barely identifiable. A few letters appear elsewhere, which are not at present, and are not known ever to have been, among the Hazlitt Papers. On the other hand, one is now furnished for the first time from that source. It is to be suspected that the former printed versions were tampered with; at any rate, they are far from representing the original documents with fidelity, and the alterations and omissions are by no means always intelligible or judicious.
