PREFACE. A NEW edition of Archbishop Leighton's Works being called for, it was thought desirable to accompany it with a more complete life, than has yet been given to the world, of their venerable author. To effect this object no trouble and expense have been spared by the publisher. Old sources of information have been explored anew; and inquiries have been carried into every fresh quarter, from whence it could be hoped that materials, which had eluded the diligence of former biographers, might be collected, to illustrate the conduct and character of this preeminent christian. It was indeed to be expected that, after the lapse of nearly a century and a half, little or nothing would be obtainable from local recollections; and that the voice of tradition would be totally silent, or, if it spoke at all, would speak only in broken and indistinct murmurs. And such in some degree is the case. The shadows of forgetfulness have closed upon almost all that Leighton said or did, of which the memory has not been perpetuated by its connexion with matters of political interest: and even of those little anecdotes, which have reached this distant period with his name engraven on them, the descent is commonly so obscure and uncertain, that it has been thought better to reject what may possibly be genuine, than to run any risk of admitting what is spurious. It is almost needless to state, that Bishop Burnet's History of his own Times is the staple, from which a large proportion of the ensuing narrative is taken; nothing of any consequence which is told in that work being omitted in this memoir. One repository, however, has been unlocked to the present editor, which was not accessible to his predecessors. He has had the perusal of a manuscript letter, addressed to Bishop Burnet by Mr. Edward Lightmaker, in which the writer, who was son to that sister with whom the Archbishop passed his last ten years, recounts whatever particulars he could call to mind of his uncle's habits of life and discourse. To verify this manuscript by external evidence has been found im possible: but the internal proof is too strong to leave any reasonable doubt of its being the autograph of |