xiv EDITOR'S PREFACE. 



a copy from earlier drafts, it was plain that it 

 was also, as Miss Bewick said, still, practically, 

 "uncorjected." In many places three or four 

 tentative words stood in place of one, and often 

 the sentences required re-arrangement. This 

 necessary re-arrangement and selection of epithet 

 Miss Bewick had undertaken in her transcript of 

 1862, and I did not feel justified in re-editing, 

 except in the case of very obvious mcurtae y the 

 text of one so fully informed of her father's wishes, 

 and so loyal to his memory. It may be that I 

 thought she had trimmed and rounded it too 

 much; it may be, also, that I thought something 

 of the raciness of the original had disappeared in 

 the process of revision. But, in the main, I felt 

 it my duty to take the book as Miss Bewick had 

 left it, only restoring here and there an epithet 

 which seemed unusually characteristic, or replac- 

 ing a passage, for the suppression of which, at 

 the present date, no adequate reason appeared 

 to exist. In one or two rare instances where 

 Miss Bewick had made retrenchments, I found 

 myself in complete agreement with her; but as 

 regards the rest, I am inclined to think, from 

 indications in ,the bound volume of proofs and 

 elsewhere, that, with respect to many of the 

 passages withdrawn from publication, she had 

 acted rather against her own judgment; and 



