Students of the Elizabethan and early Jacobean period of our history, particularly those interested in the story of our Catholic forefathers during those days of severe persecution, have long desired that the letters of Father Persons should be published, even as those of his friend and co-worker in the Catholic cause, Cardinal Allen, had been in the indispensable work of Fr. Knox: and my predecessor, Fr. J. H. Pollen, S.]., who had already edited for the Catholic Record Society several of Persons's memoirs, had in mind to complete those memoirs by an edition of his letters . .Unfortunately, pressure of other historical work prevented him from carrying out his intention. Before his lamented death, however, he had made a very considerable collection of the letters; and of those which have been subsequently added to it there is hardly one which was unknown to him, even though he had had no suitable opportunity for transcribing it.
