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PREFACE.

IMMEDIATELY after the death of Governor Andrew, in 1868, the Massachusetts Historical Society took appropriate action, and a member was appointed to prepare a Memoir of our deceased Associate. The unusual delay in this work has arisen partly from the authoritative announcement that an accomplished writer was collecting materials for an extended biography of the great War Governor, and it seemed best to postpone the sketch for this Society in the hope. of being able to make a more satisfactory statement of Mr. Andrew's life and labors, from the light thrown upon them by a biographer selected by the family, one in every way competent to the work. It is now probable that the Memoir referred to will not be published for a considerable time, if at all. Moreover, at the time of Mr. Andrew's death the fires of controversy were still burning, and it was thought that the subject might be treated in a more just and dispassionate way after the lapse of time, when the principles

on which he acted could be better appreciated and the prophetic character of his writings might be tested by time and experience. There was also a natural reluctance on the part of one of his earliest and most constant friends to attempt, in the space usually allowed for matters of this kind, the analysis of a character so remarkable, which should be just to him and loyal to the truth. In the Uffizi Gallery at Florence there is a remarkable bust of Brutus, left unfinished by Michael Angelo. An English scholar explains the fact in some lines indicating that the artist abandoned his labor in despair, because overcome by the grandeur of the subject:

"Brutum efficis set sculptor, sed mente recursat
Tanta viri virtus, sistit, et obstupuit."

It is with something of this feeling that the sketch just now prepared is submitted to the Society.

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MEMOIR.

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