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If the life of a humble individual, on whom neither splendid appointments, important transactions, nor atrocious crimes have called the attention of the public, can afford amusement to the friends he leaves behind, without being offered either as a model to follow, or a precipice to shun, the intention of the writer of these Memoirs will be fully accomplished. But there is no member of society who, by diligence, talents, or conduct, leaves his name and his race a little better than those from which he sprung, who is totally without some claim to attention on the means by which such advantages were achieved.
My life, though it has been frequently a tissue of toil, sickness, and sorrow, has yet been, upon the whole, so much more pleasant and prosperous than I had a title to expect, or than many others with higher claims have enjoyed, that its incidents, when related, may, perhaps, help to put mediocrity in good-humour, and to repress the pride and over-rated worth and expectations of indolence.
Perhaps few have been better enabled to describe, from an actual survey, the manners and customs of the age in which he lived than myself; ascending from those of the most humble cottagers, and lowest mechanics, to the first nobility, and most elevated personages, with whom circumstances, situation, and accident, at different periods of my life, have rendered me familiar.
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- Memoirs of Doctor BurneyArranged from His Own Manuscripts, from Family Papers, and from Personal Recollections, pp. x - xviPublisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010