ve of that
which costs it nothing. And, as a further title to our regard, Dr. Bliss
is amusing at his own expense, and compares himself to Earle's "critic,"
who swells books into folios with his comments. Not that this humorous
self-depreciation is to be pressed; for, unlike that critic, he is no
"troublesome vexer of the dead."

But though there is no need of a preface, I have two excuses for writing
one.

The first is that I was asked to do it by my friend Mr. Frank George, of
Bristol, who wished to see the book reprinted; and the second is the old
_professio pietatis_, which seemed to Tacitus a sufficient defence of the
Agricola, and may perhaps be allowed to serve humbler people as well. What
Earle says of men is no less true of books: "Acquaintance is the first
draught of a friend. Men take a degree in our respect till at last they
wholly possess us;" and the history of this possession must, in every
case, have a sort of interest, as long as it is not carried to the point
of demanding from others the superlatives we permit to ourselves. It is
sufficiently common for people to like the same book for different
reasons; and where an author has a secure place in English literature, his
shade, like the deity of Utopia, may be best pleased with a manifold and
various worship.[D]

The character of Earle, as drawn by Clarendon, is itself a guarantee for
his studies of character; and the fact that Lord Falkland was his chosen
friend is evidence of his possessing something of that sweet
reasonableness of temper for which his host was so remarkable. "He was
very dear" (we are told) "to the Lord Falkland, with whom he spent as much
time as he could make his own." Indeed, "Mr. Earles would frequently
profess that he had got more useful learning by his conversation at Tew
than he had at Oxford." Of Earle's conversation Clarendon says that it was
"so pleasant and delightful, so very innocent and so very facetious, that
no man's company was more desired and more loved." Walton, too, tells us
of his "innocent wisdom and sanctified learning"; and another witness
speaks of his "charitable heart," an epithet which is nobly borne out by
the correspondence between himself and Baxter printed in this volume.

This is no superfluous citation of testimony. Without it we might,
perhaps, have suspected, though not, I think, legitimately, something
almost of a cynical spirit in the severity of the punishment which he
deals out to the vario