BIRTH AND EDUCATION--CAMBRIDGE.

I cannot, perhaps, more fitly begin this short biography than with
some words in which its subject has expressed his own feelings as to
the spirit in which such a task should be approached. "Silence,"
says Wordsworth, "is a privilege of the grave, a right of the
departed: let him, therefore, who infringes that right by speaking
publicly of, for, or against, those who cannot speak for themselves,
take heed that he opens not his mouth without a sufficient sanction.
Only to philosophy enlightened by the affections does it belong
justly to estimate the claims of the deceased on the one hand, and
of the present age and future generations on the other, and to
strike a balance between them. Such philosophy runs a risk of
becoming extinct among us, if the coarse intrusions into the recesses,
the gross breaches upon the sanctities, of domestic life, to which we
have lately been more and more accustomed, are to be regarded as
indications of a vigorous state of public feeling. The wise and good
respect, as one of the noblest characteristics of Englishmen, that
jealousy of familiar approach which, while it contributes to the
maintenance of private dignity, is one of the most efficacious
guardians of rational public freedom."

In accordance with these views the poet entrusted to his nephew, the
late Bishop of Lincoln, the task of composing memoirs of his life,
in the just confidence that nothing would by such hands be given to
the world which was inconsistent with the dignity either of the
living or of the dead. From those memoirs the facts contained in the
present work have been for the most part drawn. It has, however,
been my fortune, through hereditary friendships, to have access to