The Reminiscences Copyright 1881 by HENRY STEVENS of Vermont _All rights reserved_ [Illustration] THE LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF SIR ANTHONY PANIZZI KCB [Illustration] [Illustration] ADVERTISEMENT TO THE AMERICAN EDITION Reform Club, Pall Mall, sw London, _15th October, 1880_ MY DEAR SIR, Well knowing that Sir Anthony Panizzi entrusted most of his literary articles and reviews to you for re-publication in America under your editorship; and aware that he gladly availed himself of your co-operation in adding to the store of American history and literature in the British Museum, I feel that your assistance will be of great advantage in promoting an American edition of my work. The addition of your ‘Twenty years personal and bibliographical Reminiscences of Panizzi and the British Museum’ cannot but add interest to the new edition, hence I heartily coincide with and approve the suggestion, in full expectation that your long experience and special opportunities will have enabled you to throw still more light on the labours of a life and the merits of an institution which cannot be too well-known everywhere. Trusting that our combined work will be as cordially received in your country as Americans always were by Panizzi at the British Museum, I remain, my dear Sir, yours very truly, LOUIS FAGAN To HENRY STEVENS, Esquire of Vermont, F S A ETC 4, Trafalgar Square, Charing Cross, London. [Illustration] PREFACE. The first chapter of these Volumes discloses the reasons which induced me to undertake the present Biography—a task amounting to a labour of love, owing to the personal interest I have felt in it from beginning to end. How far, however, I may succeed in satisfying my Readers—fully conscious as I am of my own demerits and the many defects to be met with—I leave them to decide, trusting to their kind indulgence not to be hypercritical in their verdict on my faithful endeavour to perform my duty both to them and to the subject of these memoirs. Some delay has arisen in the completion of the work, to be attributed to three causes: the interruption occasioned by my official duties, the variety and complicated nature of the subject, and the numerous translations required for the full development of the life I desired to treat with justice in every respect.