EDITOR'S PREFACE 



The first edition of this Life of the Duke of Newcastle was pub- 

 lished in 1667. It is a thin folio of about 200 pages. This 

 was followed in 1668 by a Latin version, translated by Walter 

 Charlton, well known in his later days as President of the 

 College of Physicians. In 1675 was published the third edi- 

 tion, a quarto ; for the translation, like the original edition, 

 is in folio. In 1872 a careful reprint of the first edition, edited 

 by Mark Antony Lower, was included in Russell Smith's 

 1 Library of Old Authors '. In the present edition, the spel- 

 ling has been modernized, and the punctuation occasionally 

 altered. 



The three editions published during the lifetime of the sub- 

 ject testify to the popularity of the book at a time when the 

 events recorded in it were still fresh in the memories of those 

 who read it, and it still retains an enduring interest for later 

 generations. Somewhat contradictory have been the judg- 

 ments passed upon it. The volume of Letters and Poems in 

 Honour of the Incomparable Princess, Margaret, Duchess of 

 Newcastle, printed in 1676, preserves the opinions of the 

 learned persons and learned bodies to whom the Duchess sent 

 presentation copies. The response of the University of Cam- 

 bridge was worthy of the gift and the giver. ' Hereafter, if 

 generous and highborn men shall search our library for a 

 model of a most accomplished general, they shall find it 

 expressed to the life, not in Xenophon's Cyrus, but in the 

 Duchess of Newcastle's William ! ... In regard we could 

 not be admitted to the favour of kissing your hand, we cease 

 not to bestow ten thousand embraces upon every page of that 

 book which hath so noble and immortal a subject as is his 

 grace the Duke of Newcastle.' Whilst the heads of the 

 University were expressing themselves with the mixture of 

 gallantry and respect which becomes learned bodies on such 

 occasions, Pepys was confiding^ to paper his contempt for the 



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