It was this passage from Macaulay that led the Editor to Courtenay’s Appendix, and it was the literary and human charm of the letters themselves that suggested the idea of stringing them together into a connected story or sketch of the love affairs of Dorothy Osborne.  This was published in April 1886 in the English Illustrated Magazine, and happened, by good luck, to fall into the hands of an admirer of Dorothy, who, having had access to the original letters, had made faithful and loving copies of each one,—­accurate even to the old-world spelling.  These labours had been followed up by much patient research, the fruits of which were now to be generously offered to the present Editor on condition that he would prepare the letters for the press.  The owner of the letters having courteously expressed his acquiescence, nothing remained but to give to the task that patient care that it is easy to give to a labour of love.

A few words of explanation as to the arrangement of the letters.  Although few of them were dated, it was found possible, by minute analysis of their contents, to place them in approximately correct order; and if one could not date each letter, one could at least assign groups of letters to specific months or seasons of the year.  The fact that New Year’s day was at this period March 25—­a fact sometimes ignored by antiquarians of high repute—­adds greatly to the difficulty of ascertaining exact dates, and as an instance of this we find in different chronicles of authority Sir Peter Osborne’s death correctly, yet differently, given as happening in March 1653 and March 1654.  Throughout this volume the ordinary New Year’s day has been retained.  The further revision and preparation that the letters have undergone is shortly this.  The spelling has been modernized, the letters punctuated and arranged in paragraphs, and names indicated by initials have been, wherever it was possible, written in full.  A note has been prefixed to each letter, printed in a more condensed form than the letter itself, and dealing with all the allusions contained in it.  This system is very fit to be applied to Dorothy’s letters, because, by its use, Dorothy is left to tell her own story without the constant and irritating references to footnotes or Appendix notes that other arrangements necessitate.  The Editor has a holy horror of the footnote, and would have it relegated to those “biblia a-biblia” from which class he is sure Elia would cheerfully except Dorothy’s letters.  In the notes themselves the endeavour has been to obtain, where it was possible, parallel references to letters, diaries, or memoirs, and the Editor can only regret that his researches, through both MSS. and printed records, have been so little successful.  In the case of well-known men like Algernon Sydney, Lord Manchester, Edmund Waller, etc., no attempt has been made to write a complete note,—­their lives and works being sufficiently well known; but in the case of more obscure persons,—­as, for instance, Dorothy’s brother-in-law, Sir Thomas Peyton,—­all the known details of their history have been carefully collected.  Yet in spite of patience, toil, and the kindness of learned friends, the Editor is bound to acknowledge that some names remain mere words to him, and but too many allusions are mysteriously dim.