[From Letters of T. E. Brown, 1900]

PREFATORY NOTE

I DESIRE to thank those who have sent me letters or helped me in other ways, and at the same time to apologize to them for the publication of the letters being so long delayed.

Those who knew the writer will easily understand me when I say that they were too private for an intelligent copyist, and too difficult to be left to an unintelligent one. Nor is the leisure required for copying easily found by a school master. Some valuable letters, moreover, were only recently sent me. I have also been compelled to cut down the material at my disposal, it being thought desirable that the book should not be large. These excuses are real though they do not claim to be adequate.

My special thanks are due to Mr. Mozley and Mr. Dakyns for most helpful suggestions and unsparing labour. Mr. Mozley, indeed, has all along done that for a new friend which the oldest friendships could not ask.

CLIFTON COLLEGE, BRISTOL, July, 1900.

Large was his soul; as large a soul as e'er
Submitted to inform a body here.
High as the place 'twas shortly in Heav'n to have,
But low and humble as his grave.
So high, that all the virtues there did come,
As to the chiefest seat
Conspicuous and great;
So low that for me too it made a room.-COWLEY.

Speravi . Credulus heu longos, ut quondam, fallere soles
At tu, sancta anima et nostri non indiga luctus, . . .
quod possum, iuxta lugere sepulchrum
Dum iuvat, et mutae vana haec iactare favillae.-GRAY.