Transcriber’s Note Italic text displayed as: _italic_ EMMANUEL BURDEN BY THE SAME AUTHOR PARIS MARIE ANTOINETTE THE PYRENEES HILLS AND THE SEA ON NOTHING AND KINDRED SUBJECTS ON EVERYTHING ON SOMETHING FIRST AND LAST THIS AND THAT AND THE OTHER A CHANGE IN THE CABINET [Illustration: A SKETCH OF MR BURDEN—FROM MEMORY] EMMANUEL BURDEN MERCHANT OF THAMES ST., IN THE CITY OF LONDON, EXPORTER OF HARDWARE A RECORD OF HIS LINEAGE, SPECULATIONS, LAST DAYS AND DEATH BY HILAIRE BELLOC WITH THIRTY-FOUR ILLUSTRATIONS BY G. K. CHESTERTON THIRD AND CHEAPER EDITION METHUEN & CO. LTD. 36 ESSEX STREET W.C. LONDON _First Published_ _September 1904_ _Second Edition_ _December 1904_ _Third Edition (2s. net)_ _April 1915_ TO HERBERT A. L. FISHER INTRODUCTION Though no prominent citizen is now-a-days permitted to pass “beyond the veil” without an account of him being drawn up for posterity, yet books of this sort have recently grown so common that some warrant for the publication of a new biography may well be demanded. Mr Burden’s public position, combined with his sterling piety and considerable wealth, would alone merit such recognition: to these must be added the fact that he was a Justice of the Peace for the County of Surrey. His connection, moreover, with Imperial Finance has, through the medium of the Press, lent a very general interest to his name even in those parts of London with which he was personally unfamiliar. I am well aware that the task of writing this history could have fallen into abler hands, but it could have been achieved by no one more devoted to his subject, or more familiar with the final catastrophe of this singularly beautiful and modest life. That I possessed the qualifications necessary for a work of this kind, was so evident to writers like Charles Egton, T. T. Batworthy, George K. Morrel, and Mrs Hooke as to cause them to withdraw voluntarily from a field in which they had already—I regret to say—laboured with some assiduity. If, in the face of such a testimony, Mr and Mrs O’Rourke persist in issuing their ill-informed and prejudiced version of the last sad months, I fear I am powerless to dissuade them.