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gifts, and, for the sake of the father, will receive with indulgence the efforts of his daughter to do fresh honour to his memory by chronicling his virtues.

This slight sketch of my father's life has passed through the ordeal of his private friends, and has been pronounced by them to present a faithful picture of his habits and character. The subject of it is of course so deeply interesting to me, that I can form no estimate of what it may be to others; but I am encouraged by these friends to believe that the life of an honest man honestly told, can never be without some value and interest to every one. In deference therefore to their opinions I now offer this Memoir to the public, with some additions and such corrections as I have been able to make; though I fear there may still remain many errors as to time, inevitable in a narrative written (as this is chiefly) from memory, and with but few data to guide me.

I do not however, I confess, offer this Memoir to the public without some anxiety; not from the fear of any honest opposition to my father's opinions, or cen

sure of the imperfect manner in which I may have performed my task: these are of course open to criticism, and are fair and honourable objects of attack. But I am aware how easily the frank and fearless, because innocent, expressions of my father's conversation may be misunderstood and misrepresented, or the private feelings of my friends wounded, should there be any one ungenerous enough to do so. I will however trust that, as this Memoir has been written with the most earnest desire to tell the truth, but in doing so to avoid giving just cause of pain to any one, I shall meet with equal delicacy from the public; and shall find that any angry feelings which the bold, undisguised expression of my father's opinions during life may have formerly excited in the world, have been long since forgotten, or are buried in the grave of him whose loss I (may I not rather say, we 'all ?) lament.

London, May, 1855.

S. H.

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