part of it has the appearance of being a cento (as the author would call it,) of passages which he had treasured up in his copious Common Place Books, and which he was glad to make use of before his death. Several sentences are to be found in the extracts from these Common Place Books given by Wilkin, and others may probably exist in those which are still unpublished. It consists of two parts, the former (§§ 1-29) relating more or less closely to the subject inatter of the Letter, the latter (§§ 30-48) altogether distinct from it, and found with numerous variations in different parts of the Christian Morals.

It first appeared about eight years after the author's death (1690), and has since been reprinted about ten times, which is perhaps more frequently than it deserves the former portion is comparatively uninteresting, and the latter chiefly valuable as furnishing the means of correcting the text of the Christian Morals. Dr. Edward Browne, in editing the Letter, did not do justice to his father's memory, and the first edition is disfigured by various errors which are certainly not attributable to the author. These have been corrected in the present edition; the few Notes

2

Chr. M." (Gardiner, Pref. to ed. 1845). "The concluding reflections are the basis of a larger work, Chr. M." (Mr. Willis Bund, Introd. to ed. 1869). 1 See Notes on p. 132. l. 21: 133. 28: 134. 12: 136. 26: 138. 13, 14. 2 See Notes on p. 128. l. 5: 130. 13: 132. 27: 142. 17: 143. 21: 148. 25: 151. 14: 153. 15, 22.

3 With one exception, p. 128. 1. 5, and this might have been corrected with

by the author have been preserved, and references have been given to the parallel passages in the Christian Morals. There is a MS. in the British Museum (Sloane, 1862) which varies considerably from the printed text. Some additional passages have been extracted by Wilkin from this MS., which are given in the Notes in this edition.

3. The "Christian Morals" are called by Dr. Edward Browne 66 a continuation of the Religio Medici," and therefore, though in this edition (as in those of Wilkin, Gardiner, and Fields) they are separated from it, probably future editors will think it better to place the two works in juxtaposition. The exact date of their composition cannot be determined with certainty; but it was after 1662,2 and before 1680,3 and probably about 1671.4 They are said by his daughter, Mrs. Littelton, to have been "the last work of her honoured and learned father." 5

They are very different in style from the Religio Medici. There is a greater admixture of strange and pedantic words, and also a more frequent allusion to events and personages in ancient and mediæval history. The book by its title raises expectations

Wilkin's Supplementary Memoir, vol. i. p. lxviii., ed. Bohn. 2 See Note on p. 191. l. 3. 3 See Note on p. 160. 1. 6.

4 If they were written a little before the Letter to a Friend. See Notes on p. 136. 1. 27: p. 198. 1. penult.

5 See the Dedication, p. 159; meaning probably the "last work" of any

which are hardly realized, and it contains nothing equal in piety or eloquence to some passages in the Religio Medici and Urn Burial. There is, however, in many parts, a grave, solemn, stately flow of words, very artificial, but not unpleasing, and not unsuited to the subject matter, which must evidently have been imitated from the parallelism of Hebrew poetry,1 and which not unfrequently reminds us, in this particular, of passages in the De Imitatione Christi. The following is an elaborate specimen of this peculiarity of style, examples of which will be found in almost every page :

"When death's heads on our hands have no influence upon our

heads,

and fleshless cadavers abate not the exorbitances of the flesh; when crucifixes upon men's hearts suppress not their bad commotions,

and His image Who was murdered for us withholds not from blood and murder;

phylacteries prove but formalities,

and their despised hints sharpen our condemnations."

(pp. 210, 211.)

They were first published in 1716, about thirty-four years after Sir T. B.'s death, by Archdeacon Jeffery, and have enjoyed a fair amount of popularity, having

* Perhaps this is what Wilkin means when he says that the "Christian Morals appears to have been written on the model of the Book of Proverbs.' (Note to Tract xiii. vol. iii. p. 267, ed Bohn.)

2 Especially as they are brought more prominently before the eye in Hirsche's edition (Berol. 1874) by being divided into lines. Why should not

been reprinted about eleven times. Of these reprints the only one that deserves particular notice is the first (1756), to which was prefixed Johnson's wellknown Life of the author.1

2

In the present volume the text has been printed from the first edition with (it is believed) only three alterations; but several other improvements and corrections have been suggested in the Notes, (chiefly arising from the parallel passages in the Letter to a Friend,) some of which may probably be adopted by future editors.3 All the Notes in the first edition have been retained, as they were copied from the original MS. of the author; and also most of those in ed. 1756, which have been of much use in the Glossarial Index. The marginal abstract of the different sections is taken, (with a few alterations,) from Peace's edition, 1844. The extracts from MSS. in the British Museum are taken from Wilkin's edition, 1852.

B. The present volume was at first intended to be little more than a corrected and improved reprint of Gardiner's edition of 1845 (W). When, however,

It is not quite certain whether Johnson contributed to this edition more than the Life, as it would almost seem from the wording and the punctuation of the title-page, as if a marked distinction were intended to be drawn between the writer of the Life and of the Explanatory Notes.

2 See Notes at p. 161. 1. 17: 165. 28: 199. 8.

3 See Notes at p. 165. 1. 19: 166. 11: 168. 22: 169. ult.: 170. 20: 190. 6:

by the kindness of Mr. Wilkin's Son and of Mr. Gardiner's Sister, the whole of the scarce editions, formerly in the possession of these two editors (respectively), were placed at my disposal, it seemed to be a sort of literary duty to make the utmost possible use of them, as no such collection had ever fallen into the hands of any previous editor. Accordingly, this accident, (or bein τúxn, as Herodotus would call it,) determined the character of the present edition, which is chiefly critical, or occupied with the improvement of the text. If I had known the amount of labour that this plan would involve, I should probably never have undertaken it; but there has been the satisfaction of thinking that the book was worth the trouble, and that future editors would thereby be exempted from the necessity of any similar work, at least to the same extent.

In the case of the Letter to a Friend, &c., and also of the Christian Morals, both of which works were published after the author's death, there was no particular difficulty in settling the text, which is taken in each case from the first published edition, with the correction of a few passages where the Author's MS. must have been copied carelessly. Where the mistakes are due to Sir T. B. himself, they are mentioned in the notes, but not corrected in the text.'