Preface

The maroon buckram binding and the typography are familiar but in a sense this volume represents a beginning. Although not immediately apparent since I have overstayed my three-year term as editor, this volume is a departure from previous ones. For the first time there is an associate editor and an editorial board, instituted with the hope that Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture will have editorial continuity and that a more representative selection of quality essays from all dis­ ciplines will be solicited. An editorial policy has also been agreed upon and is published for the first time. New editorial procedures will not answer those critics who disguise their inability to review such a diverse collection of essays by harping on the lack of thematic unity. Much of the vitality of our society is in its diversity and I hope that the following essays demonstrate this diversity at its best. "There are few things not purely evil, of which we can say, without some emotion of uneasiness, this is the last." Although all has not been "delight in sublunary pleasures," one of the real pleasures of ed­ iting has been talking and corresponding with members I might not otherwise have met. Among these are the many editorial readers who have taken time from a busy fall semester to insure the quality of the volumes. For their support and assistance I am most grateful. I am happy to share any of the credit with them and take full responsibility for any failings since final editorial decisions were my own. I only hope that no one will say, he found it marble and left it brick. O M Brack, Jr. June 19, 1986 ix ...