Transcribed from the 1902 Edition , email

A. W. KINGLAKE
A BIOGRAPHICAL AND
LITERARY STUDY

BY
REV. W. TUCKWELL

AUTHOR OF“TONGUES IN TREES,” “WINCHESTER FIFTY
YEARS AGO,” “REMINISCENCES OFOXFORD,” ETC.

ἁμέραιδ᾿ἐπίλοιποιμάρτυρεςσοφώτατρο

LONDON

GEORGE BELL AND SONS,

1902

p. ivCHISWICKPRESS: CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO.
TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE,LONDON.

p.vPREFACE

It is just eleven years since Kinglake passed away, and hislife has not yet been separately memorialized.  A few yearsmore, and the personal side of him would be irrecoverable, thoughby personality, no less than by authorship, he made hiscontemporary mark.  When a tomb has been closed forcenturies, the effaced lineaments of its tenant can bere-coloured only by the idealizing hand of genius, as Scott drewClaverhouse, and Carlyle drew Cromwell.  But, to thebiographer of the lately dead, men have a right to say, as Saulsaid to the Witch of Endor, “Call up Samuel!” In your study of a life so recent as Kinglake’s, give us,if you choose, some critical synopsis of his monumental writings,some salvage from his ephemeral and scattered papers; trace somuch of his youthful training as shaped the development of hischaracter; depict, with wise restraint, his political and publiclife: but also, and above all, re-clothe him “in his habitas he lived,” as friends and p. viassociates knew him; recover histraits of voice and manner, his conversational wit or wisdom,epigram or paradox, his explosions of sarcasm and hiseccentricities of reserve, his words of winningness and acts ofkindness: and, since one half of his life was social, introduceus to the companions who shared his lighter hour and evoked hisfiner fancies; take us to the Athenæum“Corner,” or to Holland House, and flash on us atleast a glimpse of the brilliant men and women who formed thesetting to his sparkle; “dic in amicitiam coeant etfoedera jungant.”

This I have endeavoured to do, with such aid as I couldcommand from his few remaining contemporaries.  His lettersto his family were destroyed by his own desire; on those writtento Madame Novikoff no such embargo was laid, nor does she believethat it was intended.  I have used these sparingly, and allextracts from them have been subjected to her censorship. If the result is not Attic in salt, it is at any rate Roman inbrevity.  I send it forth with John Bunyan’s homelyaspiration:

And may its buyer have no cause to say,
His money is but lost or thrown away.

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