Q LIFE OF ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL TAIT Archbishop of Canterbury BY RANDALL THOMAS DAVIDSON, D.D. BISHOP OF ROCHESTER, LATE DEAN OF WINDSOR AND WILLIAM BENHAM, B.D. HON. CANON OF CANTERBURY SECOND EDITION IN TWO VOLUMES VOL. I. LONDON MACMILLAN AND CO. AND NEW YORK 1891 PREFACE. THE position occupied by Archbishop Tait in the public view made it inevitable that some biography of him should, ere long, be published. It is now more than eight years since he died, and if it be asked why these volumes have not appeared more speedily, the answer must be found in the extent and variety of the work their preparation has involved. To give sustained attention to the subject has been at times impossible, owing to the constant pressure of duties of other kinds, and each interval in which the book was laid aside has involved fresh labour on its resumption. In place of the material on which biographers can usually rely, Archbishop Tait left behind him a mass of business correspondence, preserved with care, and in some periods well arranged. Valuable as these letters will become hereafter, as giving a picture of the Church of England of our day, they are of comparatively little service for such a book as this. His letter-files contain about 62,500 letters. Not one in a hundred of these is available for biographical purposes, but it may be confidently hoped that their perusal has at least put the writer of each chapter in touch with the 4 2 circumstances of the years he is recording, and has secured him against mistakes of date, or misrepresentation of important facts. It would be impossible to thank publicly the many correspondents who have contributed valuable reminiscences, or revised the account of episodes in which they were themselves concerned, or permitted letters in their possession to be used or read. Piquancy might doubtless have been added to some chapters had a less strict rule of reticence been observed, but mistakes in this direction, if such there be, are mistakes upon the right side. What has been attempted is the plain record of a busy and eventful life, covering a period in the histe y of Church and Nation the importance of which grows every year more manifest. Deanery, WinDSOR, Easter 1891. |