ABSTRACT
Published in PW I, pp. 100–24. The reference to ‘a letter to Mr. Blackwood’ (p. 32 below) indicates that this evidently unfinished essay was written for publication in Blackwood’s. The reason for its rejection is not known. As Japp points out, the essay’s date is fixed fairly closely by the allusion to the Courvoisier murder trial of June 1840 (p. 37 below and n. 61) as having taken place ‘about a year’ previously, which, if approximately accurate, gives a date in mid-1841.
