Page:Miscellanies (IA miscellanies00swinrich).pdf/12

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PREFACE

conscious injustice, to take into full and fair account the circumstances of time and accident which affected for better or for worse the subjects of our moral or critical sentence. The best and the greatest are not above or beyond the need of such consideration; and some due allowance of it, not sufficient to disturb the balance of our judgment or derange the verdict of our conscience, should possibly be extended to the meanest and the worst.