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A SERIES OF HIS EPISTOLARY CORRESPONDENCE

AND CONVERSATIONS WITH MANY EMINENT PERSONS;

A N D

VARIOUS ORIGINAL PIECES OF HIS COMPOSITION,

NE VER

BEFORE

PUBLISHED.

THE WHOLE EXHIBITING A VIEW OF LITERATURE AND LITERARY MEN
IN GREAT BRITAIN, FOR NEAR HALF A CENTURY,

DURING WHICH HE FLOURISHED,

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A D V E RT IS E M E N T.

1

At last deliver to the world a Work which I have long promised, and

which, I am afraid, too high expectations have been raised. The delay of its publication must be imputed, in a conßderable degree, to the extraordinary zeal which has been shewn by diftinguished persons in all quarters to supply me with additional information concerning its illuftrious Subject; resembling in this the grateful tribes of ancient nations, of which every individual was eager to throw a

to throw a stone upon

the

grave of a departed Hero, and thus to share in the pious office of ere&ting an bonourable monument to his memory.

The labour and anxious attention with which I have collected and arranged the materials of which these volumes are composed, will hardly be conceived by those who read them with careless facility. The stretch of mind and prompt asħduity by which so many conversations were preserved, I myself, af some distance of time, contemplate with wonder ; and I must be allowed to suggest, that the nature of the work in other respects, as it confifts of innumerable detached particulars, all which, even the most minute, I have spared no pains to ascertain with a

scrupulous

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