It may be thought that some of the foot-notes, extending over several pages, are longer than the subject-matter re quired; but this amplification arises from a desire not to leave any thing unwritten which Should really appear, nor to omit facts and miscellaneous information which would not be accessible to the general reader. If it Should be thought that there is a tendency to prolixity, omission might have been culpable. Some important facts and the prin cipal ascertained incidents of the life of each individual, have, for the first time, been brought together. Woe to him who tries to say all that can be said on any individual, even of some illustrious line, like that of Stanley, so ancient to adopt a remark of Gibbon in his Autobiography, that it has no beginning, and so worthy that it ought to have no end.' The annotations are restricted to the subject; and private opinions on the conduct and proceed ings of the deceased have not, it is hoped, been un necessarily or offensively obtruded on the reader. Some Of the notes contain original information which may furnish future biographers with materials from which an accurate judgment may be formed of the characters, principles, and ordinary habits of life, of a few of our more distin guished Lancashire worthies, and it is trusted that this statement will be received as an exposition of the motives of the contributors of these notes.