PREFACE
The compiler of these pages does not labour under the delusion that he has written a book. All that he has attempted has been, as it were, to invite his reader to an arm-chair in his study, and to place in the reader’s hands a succession of open volumes and copies of manuscripts containing passages which throw more or less light upon the lives of the first Duke and Duchess of Newcastle. Occasionally he has ventured to make a few remarks, either of introduction or of retrospection, concerning the evidence thus brought before his guest, remarks which may easily be skipped at will.
This humble form of literary labour has the signal advantage that, if it fails to attract the reader, it succeeds in affording an object for reading to the writer.
Much assistance has been most kindly given in this work by Mr. Walter Herries Pollock.