plete at his death. He had, however, pointed out by memoranda the names of the Individuals whose conversation he intended should form the collection, and the order in which they should stand.

There is an entry in his Note Book, in his own handwriting, in the following words: Fox, Burke, Grattan, Porson, Tooke,

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Talleyrand, Erskine, Walter Scott, Lord "Grenville, Duke of Wellington." By this and numerous other indications he has sufficiently shown the course he wished should be followed; and a short preface, written by him as an introduction to the Recollections, makes clear his intention that they should not always remain unpublished.

Of the persons abovenamed, Mr. Burke was the only one with whom Mr. Rogers was not intimately acquainted, and whose conversation was not taken down by him from personal communication. He only knew

Mr. Burke as a public man, and was indebted

to friends for the Recollections of him inIcluded in this work.

With a view of rendering these Memorials as valuable as circumstances will allow, as well as of carrying out Mr. Rogers's apparent design, the Editor has, in addition to the extracts which he found already made from the Diaries, selected some further passages in connection with the persons named which appear of sufficient interest to be preserved, and which had probably been omitted owing to the extracts not having been completed. In doing this it is possible he has introduced some parts which Mr. Rogers might not have thought important enough to be put in print. It is hoped, however, that the Reader will not complain of the introduction of a few sentences which the Author may have left out, through accident or extreme caution; but to which the lapse

of time has now given a value. The most extensive of the additions so made are the anecdotes of Burke by Dr. Lawrence, and a few of the miscellaneous remarks by the Duke of Wellington at p. 216 and the following pages.

Mr. Rogers, at times, no doubt intended. that the Recollections should be published in his lifetime, and perhaps at a period when some of the persons described were living. Accidental circumstances, or further consideration, however, prevented the fulfilment of this intention; and caused him to leave to his Executors the agreeable task of laying these pages before the Public: a pleasure which has been kindly yielded to the Editor by his Brother and Co-executor. The Editor therefore feels that by the course he is now taking, he is only discharging a duty which he owes to the deceased; and he believes that the death of all the persons whose

conversation is recorded, and the distance, in time, of the events described, will justify the introduction of more than could have been so well admitted at an earlier period.

Although it may be thought that the following Memorials want the point and interest that so often enliven contemporary memoirs, yet it is hoped they will be valued on other grounds. It will be obvious to all who knew Mr. Rogers well that they are in strict accordance with the best parts of his mind and character. Nothing has been allowed by him to stand that has any approach to personal scandal or to matters of merely temporary interest; except in a few instances. there is but little reference to the politics of the day in which they were written; many passages, open to objection on some of these grounds, that had found their way into the original notes, were omitted from the corrected copy; and the Writer, who had the

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amplest choice of subjects, has shown that the conversation he thought most worthy of being put on record was that connected chiefly with literary subjects, or having for other reasons a permanent value.

It is clear that the opinions and remarks here preserved by Mr. Rogers were not noted down as correct criticisms, but principally as traits of character; and in that light the Editor trusts they will be thought to afford agreeable and faithful pictures of many Individuals with whom the Reader will be glad to be more intimately acquainted.

Mr. Rogers so often referred in conversation to these remembrances of the anecdotes and opinions of his early friends, that many of them have been repeated by others either verbally or in print, and may at first glance appear familiar to the reader. But they have been so frequently, and so much, altered