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PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE AND CO., Paul's WORK, EDINBUrgh,

PREFACE.

THE first chapter of these "Passages from the Diary of a late Physician" appeared in Blackwood's Magazine in August 1830, and the last in August 1837. The first separate publication of them, in two volumes, took place in 1832; between which period and the present, four very large impressions of them have been exhausted; and it is a great satisfaction both to my publisher and myself, to find that this has been effected without having, in any way, had recourse to the modern system of puffing; that miserable source of the degradation of literature. A fifth edition having been called for, is accompanied by the Third Volume, which contains all the chapters that have since made their appearance in Blackwood's Magazine.

As it lately became necessary, in the course of Chancery proceedings instituted by Mr Blackwood against parties who had pirated considerable portions of this work, that I should make oath of the fact of my being the sole author of it; and as

it has been, both at home and abroad, long confidently attributed to other people—I now repeat the statement, that I am the sole author of every portion of the work, and, in deference to the wishes of my family, place my name, as such author, upon the title-page.* It is not necessary to trouble the reader with the reasons that induced me so long to abstain from doing so.

To account for any appearance of familiarity with medical details in this work, I may add, that I was for six years actively engaged in the practical study of physic-a profession, however, which I quitted in the month of September, 1827.

It may, perhaps, be not uninteresting to the reader-merely, however, as a matter of petty literary detail to be informed, that the first chapter of this " Diary" the Early Struggles-was offered by me successively to the conductors of three leading magazines in London, and rejected, as "unsuitable for their pages," and "not likely to interest the public." In despair I bethought myself of the Great Northern Magazine. I remember taking my packet to Mr Cadell's, in the Strand, with a sad suspicion that I should never see or

In three foreign editions of the "Diary," the name of "DR HARRISON" is placed upon the title-page; in England several persons have actually stated themselves to be the writers of this work; others, that they have contributed towards it. I need hardly say, that all such statements are entirely untrue.

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