When the representatives of the late Dr. Wardlaw first requested me to become his biographer, I felt constrained to decline to undertake the duty. To this I was moved, not by any insensibility to the honour which the making of such a request conferred upon me, still less by any unwillingness to do aught that lay in my power to serve the memory of that honoured and beloved friend, but by two reasons of a kind which seemed to disqualify me for the office I was invited to assume. The one of these was, that I had already upon my shoulders a burden of engagements, official and literary, which seemed to preclude the possibility of my accomplishing the work required within any reasonable period; the other was that, holding upon several points views different from those advocated by Dr. Wardlaw in some of his published writings, I feared lest, in describing his literary efforts, I should be constrained to display a greater amount of dissent from his opinions than is desirable on the part of a biographer in relation to his subject.