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PREFACE.

AT ONE PERIOD of his life DEAN MILMAN was a constant contributor to the Quarterly Review,' and for many years, especially while it was edited by his dear and intimate friend John Gibson Lockhart, scarcely a volume appeared which did not contain, at the least, one article from his pen. Other avocations and severer studies afterwards diverted him from these more ephemeral literary pursuits, but again towards the close of his life, when the completion of the History of Latin Chris tianity' had restored him to comparative leisure, he took pleasure in renewing his old connection with the Review, and in occasionally writing essays on any subject in which he was at the time particularly interested. A full list of these articles would run to great length. They embrace a wide variety of matter, critical, literary, biographical, historical, and afford convincing proof of the versatility of his genius, of his large sympathy, and of the readiness with which his abundant stores of learning were brought to bear in elucidating and illustrating such

topics. Some deal with questions and books of passing interest; others have an undoubted permanent value. Of these the present publication contains a selection. With so much that claimed careful consideration it was by no means easy to contract the choice within the limit of a single volume, but it has been thought best in the first instance so to confine it, leaving for future consideration the advisability of a further reproduction. Many, and among them perhaps the most brilliant, of Dean Milman's essays relate to persons and events which have since been treated of in his 'Histories,' and having there received his latest revision, find in them their proper and final place. But there are others, such as those on Savonarola and Erasmus, which take up an epoch of ecclesiastical history beyond the scope of the Histories of Christianity,' and cannot, it is believed, fail to be read with interest. The articles on "The Development of Christian Doctrine,' and 'The Relation of the Clergy to the People,' are the only two out of the whole number which are mainly or exclusively of a controversial character. But they nowhere for a moment transgress the bounds of strictest courtesy and candour, and many persons who remember their temperate but firm discussion of problems, which cannot yet be regarded as of no practical importance, having expressed a desire that they should be reprinted, it was not possible to exclude them from the present series. A peculiar interest attaches to that

upon Pagan and Christian Sepulchres,' as being the author's last contribution to the Review. It was a subject to which his attention was for many reasons attracted, and during a visit to Rome in 1857 he had himself the satisfaction of visiting many of the principal catacombs under the guidance of the Cavaliere de Rossi, whose great work 'La Roma Sotterranea Cristiana' eventually gave occasion to the Essay.

A. M.

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