INTIIODUCTION. THE Letters of the Lady Brilliana Harley are published from a collection of family papers in the possession of her descendant the Lady Frances Vernon Harcourt, of Brampton Bryan, Herefordshire. The MSS. hadbeen neglected at Eywood, the seat of the Harleys in that county, until within the last few years, when they were rescued from ruin, and arranged by the Lady Frances, to whose charge they were committed by her father, Edward, the fifthEarl of Oxford. It is not improbable, that they were left. at Eywood by Edward Har- ley, the Auditor of the Imprest, who resided there, being himself the second son of Sir Edward Harley, to whom most of the Letters are addressed, and to whose piety, no doubt, their preservation is due. It will be remembered, that upon failure of issue male of Robert Harley, the first Earl of Oxford, by the death of his son Edward, the founder of the Harleian Library, the title passed to the son of the auditor his brother, and thence descended to the late Earl, at whose death, whilst these pages are in the press (January 1853) the title became extinct. The present volume comprises all the Letters in the collection written by the Lady Brilliana, which are printed from transcripts made by the Editor, with scrupulous fidelity to the originals.
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