The publication of the present volume may at first sight appear to require some brief explanation from the Translator, inasmuch as the character of the incidents may justify such an expectation on the part of the reader. It is therefore necessary to state, that although strange scenes of vice and crime are here exhibited, it is in the hope that they may serve as beacons, to guide the ignorant and unwary from the shoals on which they might otherwise be wrecked.
The work, when considered as a whole, is strictly moral. The Catholic priest is not praised for burning his fellow-creature at an auto-da-fé, and for wallowing in licentiousness; nor is the Calvinist commended for his unrelenting malignity to all those whose tenets are different from his own, and for crying down the most innocent pleasures and relaxations which a bountiful and just God has been pleased to place within the reach of his earthly children.
The tyrant and the oppressor of mankind will here find himself depicted in his proper colours. Neither will the champions of freedom pass the fiery ordeal with feet unseared; since a gloriousspecimen of what they all are will be found among the following pages. Ye who with ever-open mouths are constantly clamouring at whatever is established, whether it be beneficial to the human race or injurious, will here find the motives for your conduct pointed out and held up to contempt and execration.
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