OR

ESSAYS

IN

ENGLISH HISTORY AND LITERATURE

BY THE LATE J. S. BREWER M.A.

PREACHER AT THE ROLLS

PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE AND MODERN HISTORY

IN KING'S COLLEGE LONDON

EDITED WITH A PREFATORY MEMOIR

BY HENRY WACE M.A.

PREACHER OF LINCOLN'S INN

PROFESSOR OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY IN KING'S COLLEGE LONDON

LONDON

JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET

1881

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PREFATORY MEMOIR.

THE intrinsic interest of the essays contained in this volume, together with the high reputation of their author as a historian, a scholar, and a divine, might seem to render it unnecessary to recommend them to the attention of the reader by any prefatory observations. But, in addition to the value they will otherwise possess, it is hoped they will serve as some memorial of a character and a career which ought to be better known, and which deserve to be permanently remembered. The circumstances, indeed, of the author's life which concern other than private friends are few and simple. But they are connected with some of the chief movements of thought during the last half-century; they add a peculiar value to all he wrote, and a knowledge of them will enhance the interest of this volume. He had also a very large number of friends and pupils-among whom the present writer had the privilege of being numbered— who will be grateful for a brief record of his life and work.

John Sherren Brewer was born in the year 1810,