AND EXTRAORDINARY ADVENTURES OF SIR WILLIAM COURTENAY, KNIGHT OF MALTA. ALIAS JOHN NICHOLS TOM, FORMERLY SPIRIT MERCHANT AND MALTSTER, OF TRURO IN CORNWALL, BEING A CORRECT DETAIL OF ALL THE INCIDENTS OF HIS EXTRAORDINARY BATTLE AT BOSSENDEN WOOD, ILLUSTRATED BY NUMEROUS ENGRAVINGS OF THE PRINCIPAL SCENES OF THAT DREADFUL TRAGEDY, WITH FAC-SIMILES OF THE AUTOGRAPHS OF THAT CONCLUDING WITH AN ACCURATE ACCOUNT OF THE TRIAL OF THE RIOTERS AT THE MAIDSTONE ASSIZES. BY CANTERBURIENSIS. CANTERBURY : PUBLISHED BY JAMES HUNT, BURGATE STREET, MDCCCXXXVII. INTRODUCTION. IT has been wisely said that the proper study of mankind is man, and as in every relation of life, a knowledge of character enables the individual to direct his attention more or less to his own advantage, accordingly as that knowledge extends of the dispositions and habits of the persons with whom he is brought into collision, so therefore does it become no unimportant matter to exhibit those various shades and aberrations of character, by the influence of which, the general interests of society are promoted or injured, and thereby establish a just and infallible criterion of moral excellence, and vicious depravity. In proportion as the individual digresses from the regular and settled course of human agency, or distinguishes himself by some great and eccentric actions above the majority of his compeers, so does he become a fit subject for the contemplatist and the physiologist, who in his examination, traces the secret springs by which the machinery of human actions is set in motion, from motives he progresses to principles, and thence deduces a just estimate of the intrinsic character of the individual. It is, however, in human society as it is in the works of nature; in the latter, we discover the phenomena of her comets, her meteors, her earth |