Excerpt from Martha, Lady Giffard, Her Life and Correspondence (1664-1722): A Sequel to the Letters of Dorothy Osborne Miss Longe has been good enough to ask me to write a few words of preface to her "Letters of Martha, Lady Giffard." This I do the more willingly remembering the kindness of other members of her family to myself when I was preparing my editions of Dorothy Osborne's "Letters." It was as far back as 1886 that an article of mine, drawing a fancy portrait of Dorothy Osborne, taken from some extracts from her letters printed in an appendix to Courtenay's "Life of Temple," happened to fall into the hands of the late Mrs. S. R. Longe, who, with characteristic unselfishness, was pleased to write to me as "a fellow servant" of Dorothy Osborne, and place at my disposal the transcripts of the letters and the notes that she had made. It was from these transcripts that the volume I published in 1888 was printed. At that time it was not thought advisable by the experts of the publishing world to print all the letters; but when, in 1903, it became possible to make a more complete book it was through the courtesy of Miss Longe's father, Mr. Longe of Spixworth Park, that the Letters of Dorothy Osborne were at length published. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.