ough it may read like a
digression. As soon then as the first of the Series got into print, the
whole project broke down. I had already anticipated that some portions
of the Series would be written in a style inconsistent with the
professions of a beneficed clergyman, and therefore I had given up my
Living; but men of great weight went further in their misgivings than I,
when they saw the Life of St. Stephen Harding, and decided that it was
of a character inconsistent even with its proceeding from an Anglican
publisher: and so the scheme was given up at once. After the two first
numbers, I retired from the Editorship, and those Lives only were
published in addition, which were then already finished, or in advanced
preparation. The following passages from what I or others wrote at the
time will illustrate what I have been saying:--

In November, 1844, I wrote thus to the author of one of them: "I am not
Editor, I have no direct control over the Series. It is T.'s work; he
may admit what he pleases; and exclude what he pleases. I was to have
been Editor. I did edit the two first numbers. I was responsible for
them, in the way in which an Editor is responsible. Had I continued
Editor, I should have exercised a control over all. I laid down in the
Preface that doctrinal subjects were, if possible, to be excluded. But,
even then, I also set down that no writer was to be held answerable for
any of the Lives but his own. When I gave up the Editorship, I had
various engagements with friends for separate Lives remaining on my
hands. I should have liked to have broken from them all, but there were
some from which I could not break, and I let them take their course.
Some have come to nothing; others like yours have gone on. I have seen
such, either in MS. or Proof. As time goes on, I shall have less and
less to do with the Series. I think the engagement between you and me
should come to an end. I have any how abundant responsibility on me, and
too much. I shall write to T. that if he wants the advantage of your
assistance, he must write to you direct."

In accordance with this letter, I had already advertised in January
1844, ten months before it, that "other Lives," after St. Stephen
Harding, would "be published by their respective authors on their own
responsibility." This notice was repeated in February, in the
advertisement to the second number entitled "The Family of St. Richard,"
though to this number, for some reason which