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TILDEN LIBRARY

1895

LONDON:

THOMAS CARSON HANSARD, PATERNOSTER ROW.

ΤΟ

SIR GEORGE CAMPBELL,

OF

EDENWOOD.

MY DEAR BROTHER,

You must permit me to prefix your name to this volume, as I have prepared it for publication at your request. You suggested that I might well employ a little of the leisure I now enjoy in revising and editing some of my speeches at the Bar and in Parliament.

I fear that notwithstanding your partial feelings, you may be disappointed. Even if I had been capable of making any Speeches worthy of being remembered, you must be aware that in quiet times, such as we have lived in, opportunities are very rare for delivering addresses in Courts of Justice which can be of permanent public interest;—and I was a law officer of the Crown during the greatest part of the period I had a seat in the House of Commons,—where the usage now is that subordinate Members of the Ad

ministration take part in debate only when subjects connected with their respective departments are under consideration, leaving the general defence of the policy of the Government to the gifted individuals who are selected to compose the Cabinet.

However, I offer you some specimens of my efforts→→ forensic and parliamentary—which perhaps you may not be ashamed of, and which may escape severe censure from my contemporaries. Amidst all the difficulties I have had to encounter, and the disappointments I have experienced, I have never forgotten the motto in the schools at St. Andrew's, our Alma Mater

Αἰὲν ἀριςεύειν.

I should rejoice if I could think that this would be a lasting memorial of a friendship-as warm and as steady as ever united Brothers-which neither time nor distance nor difference of pursuit has been able to interrupt or impair.

It may be that my aspirations and hopes proving delusive, my existence in a short space of time may be known only to my children: but they will be better pleased with the obscurity of their father than if he had gained dishonest fame; -and they will have the consolation to reflect that he never abandoned his principles or his party, and that by remaining true to the cause of civil and religious liberty he always sought the good of his country and the happiness of mankind.

It delights me to think that, however I may be tossed about on the stormy sea of public life, you in your retreat are in the safe enjoyment of the refined pleasures of literature and science.

"Eternal blessings crown my earliest friend,

"And round his dwelling guardian saints attend."

Through all the vicissitudes which may yet await me, I shall ever remain,

Your most affectionate Brother,

CAMPBELL.

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