THE ENDLESS STUDY AND OTHER MISCELLANIES. BY ALEXANDER VINET. TRANSLATED, WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY ROBERT TURNBULL. NEW YORK: PUBLISHED BY M. W. DODD, BRICK CHURCH CHAPEL, CITY HALL SQUARE, (OPPOSITE THE CITY HALL.) 1850. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1850, By M. W. DODD, In the Clerk's Office for the Southern District of New York. STEREOTYPED BY THOMAS B. SMITH, 216 WILLIAM STREET, N. Y. PREFATORY NOTE. THOSE acquainted with a volume of Vinet's Essays and Discourses published by the translator a few years ago, but now out of print, under the title of "Vital Christianity," will readily discover, in a modified form, some portions of that work in the present, particularly in the Introduction and in the latter part of the volume. Circumstances, over which the editor had no control, left him only this method of preserving for the use of the public, any part of that work, which was received with unusual cordiality, and served to introduce Vinet to American readers. The present volume, we think, will be found to possess a still higher interest and value, as it contains some of the finest things that Vinet wrote, and on themes of the highest moment. An apology, perhaps, is due from the translator for presuming to mingle his thoughts and explanations with the productions of such an author, in the form of Introduction, notes, and so forth. But the candid reader will allow, that as every author writes under peculiar circumstances, and with a view to certain readers, his works may not be so well adapted to another sphere and another class of readers. This, we think, will be found peculiarly the case with the works of Vinet, who wrote chiefly for the benefit of Swiss, French, and German readers, and who mingles in all his productions allusions and references to matters, literary, religious, and philosophical, with which comparatively few American or English readers are supposed to be familiar. Our aim has been, so to translate and so to edit the following work, that it may be really useful to general readers, and thus subserve the great end for which its devout and eloquent author lived and died. |