Birthplace—Grandparents—Dr. Erasmus Darwin—Lunar Society—Captain Barclay Allardice—Mrs. Schimmelpenninck Just before the arrival of the letter in which my publisher asked me to write the memories of my life, I happened to be reading Shakespeare’s _Henry IV._ and laughing over Falstaff’s soliloquy after the gross exaggerations by Justice Shallow of his own youthful performances. It contained the sentence, “Lord, Lord, how subject we old men are to this vice of lying!” Feeling the truth of his ejaculation, I headed the first page of my memorandum-book with those words as a warning, knowing how difficult it is to be veracious about long-past events, threads of imagination insinuating themselve…
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