Excerpt from A Memoir of the Reverend Sydney Smith, Vol. 2 of 2 It is, I think, necessary to offer some explanation of the part I have taken in the selection and arrangement of the following Letters for the press. It was in compliance with the earnest desire and repeated solicitations of Mrs. Sydney Smith, that I undertook to edit the letters of her lamented husband, and to write a short memoir, the materials for which she was to furnish. Flattered as I could not but be by her request, I was too sensible of my own incompetence to such a work to engage in it willingly; and it was not till I found that no more competent editor (or none whom she esteemed so) was willing and able to undertake the task, that I yielded to the affecting importunities of my revered friend. Not long after I received the materials for the projected work, a dangerous illness left me in so shattered a state of health, that every exertion of mind or body was forbidden, and indeed impossible, to me; and I begged Mrs. Smith to receive back the papers she had intrusted to my care. Still she urged me to wait. While I waited, she arrived before me at the goal which I had so nearly reached. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.