I need scarcely say that the “Prefatory Memoir” has been of great service to me in my task. It is not for me to say how well it is written, or to praise the work of one to whom I owe everything. I may, at all events, acknowledge my debt. I have, as the reader will see, largely drawn upon it. That it was, however, imperfect—necessarily so, as I have shown—will be at once recognised by any one who considers how much I have quoted from my uncle’s Memoirs and from the letters. It contained, for instance, no mention of the visit to Edgeworth-Town, and not a single extract from a letter. In giving so full an account of my grandparents and of their home-life, I have borne in mind the saying of Mr. Carlyle, that “the history of a man’s childhood is the description of his parents and environment.”[3] In a very large sense is this true of the childhood of Rowland Hill. I have not dwelt so much, as I should otherwise have done, on the character of his eldest brother, towards whom he felt himself indebted in so many ways. By “The Life of Matthew Davenport Hill, the Recorder of Birmingham,” by his daughters, I find myself forestalled in this part of my work. In my duty as Editor of “The History of Penny Postage,” I have ventured not only here and there on a verbal alteration, but also on considerable omissions, and in some places, on a change of arrangement. In fact, I have acted on the advice which I gave eight years ago. I have gathered into Appendices some of the less important matters, and I have thus enabled my readers, as their tastes may lead them, either to read the whole History, or, if they find that too long, to follow a somewhat briefer but still a connected narrative. In making changes such as these I was running, I was well aware, a great risk of falling into serious errors. A reference, for instance, might be left in to a passage which, by the new arrangement, was either not given at all, or else was found on a later page. I have, however, spared no pains to guard against such blunders, trying always to keep before me the high standard of strict accuracy which the subject of my biography ever set me. G. B. HILL. The Poplars, Burghfield, September 21st, 1880. CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME. BOOK I. CHAPTER I.