PREFACE. 



If books wore as scarce in the present day as they Avere at 

 the time when the subject of this Memoir lived, no apology woiild 

 be needed for adding one more small volume to the catalogue of 

 existing publications ; but when the author himself admits the im- 

 possibility of making acquaintance with even a thousandth part 

 of the literature of the age in which he lives, some sort of excuse 

 ought, perhaps, to be offered for obtruding another volume, however 

 small, upon a public already satiated with food for the mind. 

 In the present instance he feels that the subject of his bio- 

 graphical notice has never met with the commonest justice; that 

 his hero has hitherto been made the handle of a mere childish 

 romance ; * that he has been cast aside as a myth by some graver 

 writers, or has been so misrepresented in the histories hitherto presented 

 to the public, which are full of inaccuracies and anachronisms, that 

 it seems difficult to place his story in its true light, so as to claim 

 for so distinguished a character his proper place in the biography 

 of our country : ho trusts, therefore, that this notice of so cele- 

 brated a man will not be thought altogether out of place. The 

 author wishes it to be clearly understood that this little work does 

 not pretend to give a full development of the life and character 

 of Eichard "WTiittington ; it is simply thrown out as an essay, 

 compiled from documents which have come under the author's 



* The author fully believes that ninety-nine persons out of a hundred are not 

 aware that the history of Eichard "Whittington is anj-thing else than a romance, 

 or child's story, and have no idea that he had a real existence. 



