PREFACE.

THE first edition of the Criterion was printed in 1754, the second in 1807. It was published for the third time in a quarto volume, which contained some other works of Bishop Douglas, and which was printed at Salisbury in 1820. The preface to this last mentioned volume contains the following passage:

"With respect to the present edition of the "Criterion, it has been carefully collated with "a copy corrected by the hand of the author: "and no alteration or addition has been made,

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except such as he himself would have adopt"ed, had not the copy been mislaid, which he "had long prepared for a new edition."

A collation of this third edition with the preceding has proved the number of these alterations to be very considerable: and the present edition, which may be called the fourth, is a faithful copy of that which was