OF THE RIGHT HON. FRANCIS NORTH, BARON GUILFORD, LORD KEEPER OF THE GREAT SEAL, UNDER KING CHARLES II. AND KING JAMES II. THE HON. SIR DUDLEY NORTH, COMMISSIONER OF THE CUSTOMS, AND AFTERWARDS OF THE TREASURY, TO KING CHARLES II. AND THE HON. AND REV. DR. JOHN NORTH, MASTER OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, AND CLERK OF THE CLOSET TO KING CHARLES II. BY THE HON. ROGER NORTH. A NEW EDITION. WITH NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS, HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON: HENRY COLBURN, NEW BURLINGTON STREET. THE EDITOR'S PREFACE. THE following Lives were originally published after the author's death, in the years 1740 and 1742, in two volumes, in quarto. Since that period the Life of the Lord Keeper Guilford has been republished in an octavo form, but the Lives of Sir Dudley North and Dr. John North have never been reprinted, and are become very scarce. the present edition the three pieces of biography, which, in fact, form only one work, are again presented to the public in the uniform shape, in which it was doubtless the intention of the author that they should appear. In Independently of the interest which these Lives possess as works of pure biography, they derive a very considerable importance from their historical character. The light, which they throw upon a period described by Mr. Fox as "one of the most singular and important of our history," and the disclosures which they present of the court intrigues of that day, so difficult to be understood, even with |
