LADY RUSSELL TO HER HUSBAND, FROM 1672 TO 1682; TOGETHER WITH SOME MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS TO AND FROM LADY RUSSELL. TO WHICH ARE ADDED, ELEVEN LETTERS FROM DOROTHY SIDNEY COUNTESS OF SUNDERLAND, PUBLISHED FROM THE ORIGINALS IN THE POSSESSION OF HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE. LONDON: PRINTED FOR LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME, AND BROWN, T42-188807 ADVERTISEMENT. THESE Letters were sorted and arranged for the Duke of Devonshire, by a friend, to whom he had permitted the examination of a considerable mass of family papers. They were returned to the Duke with the following letter. When he was solicited by several persons, to whom he had communicated Lady Russell's correspondence in its present state, to allow of its publication, the same friend was applied to, for some account of her life. It is here prefixed to the letters. Those of Lady Russell will be found devoid of every ornament of style, and deficient in almost every particular that constitutes, what are generally called, entertaining letters. Their merit must arise entirely from a previous knowledge of the character and habits of their writer, and from the interest which the subsequent circumstances, in which she was placed, inspire. They are sometimes overcharged, sometimes confused with a repetition of trifling details; |