DEDICATED, BY EXPRESS PERMISSION, TO HIS MOST GRACIOUS MAJESTY, GEORGE THE FOURTH, KING OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND, &c. &c. &c. TO THE KING'S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY. SIRE, HAVING been honoured with Your Majesty's gracious permission to lay before You this Narrative, which is principally occupied in detailing researches made into the present condition and ancient history of the VAUDOIS, or WALDENSES, I embrace, with sincere satisfaction, the hope that a community, which has often found relief and protection from Your August Predecessors, may engage some portion of Your Royal regard. Such favour has this extraordinary race of people found in the sight of those Monarchs, who have successively swayed the sceptre of these dominions, that for the last two hun dred years scarcely has there reigned a Sovereign who has not espoused their cause. To whom, indeed, could the DEFENDERS OF THE FAITH be more consistently expected to extend their regards than to the descendants of those primitive confessors, who had transmitted to them the Faith they so strenuously upheld? I cannot but express my humble conviction, that should circumstances ever render Your Benevolent Interposition necessary, this interesting people would not need to have recourse to precedents to move Your Majesty in their behalf. In such an event they would find their most sure and earnest advocate in Your Majesty's own breast. Sensible as I am of the high distinction of being admitted to approach Your August Presence with this volume, I am still more gratefully impressed with the feeling of the prospect it opens to the Vaudois, of obtaining a large share of Your Sympathy; conscious |