it proudly aspires to commemorate, rests on no false claim. It offers
not any meretricious attraction to the eye; it submits itself, wholly,
to the understanding, and to the heart. Should it fail considerably to
gratify the one, and powerfully to interest the other, it will be in
vain for the author to urge, however true, that he has exerted himself,
with a due sense of the dignity of his subject, and of the difficulty of
the task, to produce a work which, though it can never sufficiently
honour the incomparable hero, should as little as possible disgrace the
kind contributory aids, and the generous patronage, which he has had the
distinguished favour to receive from so many estimable and illustrious
personages. To add a list of names, might seem ostentatious; but,
certainly, such a list would contain almost every great and virtuous
character allied to his late lordship, in the bonds of affinity as well
as of friendship. With most of these, it will ever constitute the chief
pride and happiness of the author's life, that he is also permitted to
boast a considerable degree of intimate friendship; and, in the
delightful retreat of Merton Place, surrounded by all who were most
dear to the heart of the hero, in consanguinity as well as amity, have
many of those valuable anecdotes been obtained, with which the work is
so abundantly enriched.
Prompted to this undertaking, by a strong sense of conviction, that our
chief hero, when his character was clearly understood, would be found as
eminently good as great, the biographer has fearlessly endeavoured
freely to investigate transactions of the utmost delicacy in private
life; and he is fully prepared to assert, and as far as possible to
prove, that there seldom has existed any human being adorned by the
practice of so many positive virtues, so little sullied by any actual
vice, as that immortal man, the chief particulars of whose history will
be found, the author may, at least, be permitted to maintain, most
faithfully recorded in the work now confided, with all it's
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