REPLY TO THE ESSAY ON POPULATION, BY THE REV. T. R. MALTHUS. IN A SERIES OF LETTERS. William Hazlit, the older. TO WHICH ARE ADDED, EXTRACTS FROM THE ESSAY: WITH NOTES. LONDON: PRINTED FOR LONGMAN, HURST, REES, AND ORME PATERNOSTER-ROW. ADVERTISEMENT. · THE three first of the following letters appeared originally in Cobbett's Weekly Pocitical Register. There are several things, in which they may seem to require some apology. First some persons, who were convinced by the arg ments, have objected to the style as too prowery, and fuil of attempts at description. If I have erred in this respect, it has been from design. I have indeed endeavoured to make my book as amusing as the costiveness of my genius would permit. If however these critics persist in their objection, I will undertake to produce a work as dry and formal as they please, if they will undertake to find readers. Secondly, some of the observations may be thought too severe and personal. In the first place, I shall answer that the abuse, of which there is to be sure a plentiful sprinkling, is not I think unmerited or unsupported; and in the second place, that if I could have attacked the work successfully, without attacking the author, I should have preferred doing so. But the thing was impossible. Whoever troubles himself about abstract reasonings, or calm, dispassionate inquiries after truth? The public ought not to blame me for consulting their taste. As to the diffuseness, the repetitions, and want of method to be found in these letters, I have no good defence to make. I may however make the same excuse for the great length to which they have run, as the Frenchman did, who apologised for writing a long letter by saying, that he had not time to write a shorter, |