Memoirs of the Life of Sir Samuel Romilly, Written by Himself, Ed. by His Sons

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1840. Excerpt: ... MEMOIRS OF SIR SAMUEL ROMILLY. NARRATIVE OF HIS EARLY LIFE, WRITTEN BY HIMSELF IN 1796. 1757--1778. August 16. 1796. I Sit down to write my life; the life of one who never achieved any thing memorable, who will probably leave no posterity, and the memory of whom is therefore likely to survive him only till the last of a few remaining and affectionate friends shall have followed him to the grave. A subject so uninteresting will hardly awaken the curiosity of any one into whose hands this writing may chance to fall, and I may almost be assured of having no reader but myself. In truth, it is for myself that I write, for myself alone; for my own instruction, and my own amusement. In old age, if I should live to be old, I may find a pleasure, congenial to that season of life, in retracing the actions and sentiments of my youth and of my manhood, less imperfectly than by the aid of an impaired and decaying memory, and as it were in living again with relations and with friends long deceased. Vol. 1. B If I had the inclination, I have not the means of speaking of many of my ancestors. The first of them that I have ever heard of is my greatgrandfather; and of him I know little more than that he had a pretty good landed estate at Montpellier, in the south of France, where he resided. He was a Protestant, but living under the religious tyranny of Louis XIV., and in a part of France where persecution raged with the greatest fury, he found it prudent to dissemble his faith, and.it was only in the privacy of his own family that he ventured to worship God in the way which he judged would find favour in His sight. His only son, my grandfather, he educated in his own religious principles, and so deeply did the young man imbibe them that, when he was about seventeen years ...