xii PREFACE 



to the group of illustrations with which he has adorned 

 the work. Another "good genius" (from an author's 

 point of view) is Gery Milner-Gibson Cullum, Esq., of 

 Hardwick Hall, who was so kind as to allow me to 

 explore the unedited correspondence of Sir John Cullum 

 and his friends. 



There has not been space to do full justice, within the 

 limits of this volume, to the mass of material which has 

 passed under the author's eye. But he ventures to pre- 

 sume so far as to say that he has made out a case for 

 fuller study of the under-currents of life during the 

 despised eighteenth century. Beside and beyond the 

 witches' cauldron of frivolity and dishonour which is so 

 often presented to us, there is evidently an unknown 

 background of sterling virtues, of greatness, virility, 

 moral rectitude, and the love of wisdom for its own sake. 



E. S. 



