PREFACE 



ALTHOUGH my father never made a/iy direct reference to 

 the subject, the condition of his papers left us without 

 doubt that he had contemplated the probability of the 

 publication of a memoir. We found that he had ar- 

 ranged his diaries, notes, and correspondence in strict 

 order, and as though with a view to their use as bio- 

 graphical material. In 1868 he became greatly interested 

 in all that reminded him of his early life. He paid a visit 

 to the haunts of his childhood, he wrote to such persons as 

 were likely to recall the events in which he was interested, 

 and he amassed a great quantity of anecdotes and memo- 

 randa. As is usually the case with the autobiographies 

 of elderly persons, his interest in the task dwindled when 

 he had passed the period of childhood ; but it did not 

 quite cease until it had reached the point where existing 

 letters, and an unbroken series of diaries, took up and 

 completed the tale. The biographer, therefore, has had 

 the rather unusual good fortune of being evenly supplied 

 with material, and of having no gaps to leap over. 



The subject of this memoir was a man of very singular 

 character. He was less in sympathy with the literary and 

 scientific movement of our age than, perhaps, any writer 

 or observer of equal distinction. It was very curious that 

 a man should write a long series of popular books, and 



