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[Illustration: In loving fellowship farewel! A Opie. 3rd Mo 24th 1841.]




                               MEMORIALS
                                 OF THE

                          LIFE OF AMELIA OPIE,

                         SELECTED AND ARRANGED

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                                   BY
                        CECILIA LUCY BRIGHTWELL.

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                                NORWICH:
                        FLETCHER AND ALEXANDER;
                     LONDON: LONGMAN, BROWN, & Co.
                 *        *        *        *        *
                               MDCCCLIV.




                                PREFACE.

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In the preparation of these Memoirs for publication, the principal part
of the labour has been undertaken by my daughter; the pressure of other
engagements having only permitted me to undertake the general direction
and supervision of the whole.

As the Executor of Mrs. Opie, her papers and letters came into my hands;
and it devolved on me to decide in what way to dispose of them. There
had been, (I believe,) a general impression among her friends, that she
would herself prepare an account of her Life; but although she seems to
have made some efforts at commencing the task, and the subject was often
affectionately recommended, and even urged upon her, she has left it a
matter of regret to her friends, (and especially so to the compilers of
these memoirs,) that no “Autobiography” was found among her papers. Nor
did Mrs. Opie ever distinctly give any directions as to the publication
of her MSS. or any Memoir of her Life; but we have, we think, strong
presumptive evidence, that she anticipated, if not desired, that it
should be done.

Not long before she died, she said, that her