The Author and Publisher reserve to themselves the right of Translating this Work.
LONDON: W. CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.
PREFACE
TO THE SECOND EDITION.
It has been very gratifying to me to witness the flattering manner in which this Journal has been received by the Public, and, with one exception, by the several writers who have noticed it.
As my own part in the Work is so small, the risk I ran in publishing it was small in proportion; but I confess that I did feel anxious not to damage the fair fame of my late brother.
The exception to which I allude is that of the Reviewer in the “Athenæum,” a paper which (having been a subscriber to it for many years) I hold in high estimation.
The writer must pardon me for observing (whilst fully admitting his right to state his conscientious opinion of the work itself), that the sneers at Mr. Larpent’s having been Fifth Wrangler, and at his slow progress at the Bar, are strangely misplaced. Surely a person attached to literature cannot seriously deprecate academic honours, or deny their primâ facie evidence of ability. And as for the slow progress in the laborious pursuit of the law, the Reviewer must have been aware that such has been the fortune of many eminent Lawyers who have afterwards risen to the highest honours of the profession. Legal or political connexions, or a fortunate opportunity of displaying latent talents, are in truth the chief causes of rapid success at the Bar. None of these did my brother possess or obtain.
Is it not, therefore, somewhat severe to argue from this admission of mine, that he was a person not above mediocrity, and to represent him as merely a respectable sort of second-rate plodding official? The writer in the “Athenæum” may have had peculiar opportunities of judging, and it is not for me to contest the opinion he may have thus formed, but it certainly was not the opinion of my brother’s contemporaries. The observations of the writer in the “Athenæum” involve also charges of more importance than his remarks upon my brother’s abilities—
“We see,” he says, “in the sweeping and unqualified charges against the soldiers of England, Scotland, and Ireland, the censorious habits of one who filled the post of Judge-Advocate General, and the passage,” he adds, “comes with bad grace from one who narrates his own discomforts ad nauseam.”