which has been hinted at in the Quarterly Review of Meadley's Memoirs, I would withdraw with the same kind of feeling that would lead me to keep out of a scrape; as I cannot be ignorant of what is meant by such insinuations, so I am desirous of considering them groundless and idle. My object will be found to be of a higher kind. What is presented new may not be more free from irrelevancies, for into such the subject is not unlikely to run under my hand. It is derived from family recollections and the domestic life of an affectionate father; and though it may be no other than the private history of any family may afford, it forms, at least to his friends, not only the most gratifying, but the most interesting part of his character. As far as I have been able, from some hints discovered in his own hand writing, I have preferred that he should speak for himself. I feel conscious, however, that little of this sort worthy of distinction is within my reach ; because from the period of life at which most

of his family were left at his death, and from his own habits in private, which were formed rather to contemplation than communication, but least of all to any display of himself— none knew less of the general incidents of his public life than his own family. It may, therefore, be worth while to pay a particular attention to his mind, so far, that is, as it may consist with a biographical sketch. At the same time that no man's life less abounded in important incident, or rather in public interest, no man's mind seems better worth following from the rise to the maturity of many of his opinions and principles: This also may account for so much of his private life and habits being brought forward in the following pages; as exclusive of the consideration that every man has his own concern in the public as well as private events of his life, so far as these may make an impression on his character-it seemed almost the bent of his inclination to try his most private and

insignificant actions by the test of his public

principles.

As to that part of his works now first edited, it is brought forward rather as a substitute for some matter which was in no sense original, than as making any fresh claim upon public attention, or perhaps materially affecting the credit of the author. As it has been no part of my design, so it may almost be conceived that it is no part of my desire, to indulge either less or more than that degree of jealousy which will be easily allowed to such an undertaking. While I avow myself suspicious of what may have been advanced by others under the name of Paley's Works, it is but fair that I should be fearful of detracting from the merit of the author by the insertion of any new matter unworthy of him.

If any thing more be necessary from the editor to the reader, it may be some little explanation with respect to the Sermons,

both those that have been before published, and those that have been hitherto unpublished. As to the first, on the one side, in a codicil to the author's will there is an express injunction, "that the said Sermons shall not be printed for sale." On the other side, there was an assurance that they certainly would be, and even were, so printed for publication surreptitiously. Dr. Paley's executors had to steer betwixt the difficulty of doing injustice to his memory by submitting to the sale of such a publication, and that of bringing upon themselves a charge of having sacrificed his injunction to pecuniary considerations. What ought to have been done, it is now in vain to speak of. For what was done, the reasons are these. It was obvious, that the injunction might be fairly construed rather as precluding those who might be interested, from any spoliation upon his name, should this volume fall into

improper hands, or rather perhaps as en

hancing the gift, than from a fear that any

thing unworthy of his name should appear. This latter supposition, indeed, as it would at once lessen the value of the gift, so it will be more than contradicted by the fact, that many of the Sermons so left for publication were more early and more incomplete, and more unconnected productions of his pen, than many which were still in manuscript, and that he was not in the habit of revising what he had written of this sort with any suspicion of mere verbal inaccuracies, or the construction of his sentences. The money arising from the sale, therefore, by being disposed of in some public charity, was considered as placed out of the reach of any private advantage; and after making some small deduction towards building one national school house at Bishop Wearmouth, and another at Giggleswick, a place intimately connected with the author, the remainder was paid into the fund of the general Society for the Sons of the Clergy. So much for the publishing of these "said Sermons,"