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Copied from the Portrait I Cameo at the Charter-hous

Published by Nichols &C April 2, 1816.

OF THE

LITERARY HISTORY

OF THE

EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

CONSISTING OF

Authentic Memoirs and Driginal Letters

OF

EMINENT PERSONS;

AND INTENDED AS A SEQUEL TO

The Literary Anecdotes.

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BY NICHOLS, SON, AND BENTLEY, AT CICERO'S HEAD,

RED-LION-PASSAGE, FLEET-STREET.

1817.

AFTER the announcement of these " Illustrations" in a Preface to the Ninth Volume of the "Literary Anecdotes," repeated in an Advertisement to the Index; I make no formal apology for offering these Volumes to the candour of the Literary Publick. I arrogate not merit from them: they are the productions of much superior Writers.

To my inestimable Correspondent and muchlamented Friend Mr. Justice HARDINGE, I am indebted for the very excellent Memoirs of Mr. Wray and Dr. Sneyd Davies; the first of which Mr. Hardinge scarcely lived to see finished at the press*; and of the latter, he had only given me the conclusion of the MS. a very few days before he set out on that Circuit from which he was never to return alive. He seems, indeed, to have had some forebodings of this melancholy event †.

His worthy Friend the Rev. Francis Wollaston, to whom Mr. Hardinge acknowledges his obligations in the Life of Wray, died some months before him.

The Memoirs of the respectable Family of Dr. RICHARD RICHARDSON, of North Bierley, from

* It is not a little remarkable, that neither Mr. Hardinge nor Mr. Wollaston lived to see the publication of that Memoir.

In return for a copy of the separate Memoirs of Dr. Davies, which I sent to one of his most justly-valued Friends, I received the following pathetic acknowledgement: "The Memoirs of Dr. Davies are a most interesting meinento of the abilities and worth of our late excellent Friend Mr. Justice Hardinge. It is remarkable, and almost prophetic, that Mr. Hardinge, in one of his letters to me a short time before his decease, should express his anxiety to finish the work, in the following words: 'I despair almost of taking leave of Davies, until the Undertaker is waiting for me.'--His style was ever playful; but the recollection of this sentence shocked me very much, when I was informed of his almost sudden death. I mention this, as I perceive you have been struck with, and remarked (p. 728) a similar painful idea." A circumstance of the same nature is noticed by Mr. Hardinge himself, respecting Mr. Eustace in p. 730.

Not Dr. Thomas Wollaston, as printed by mistake vol. IX.494.

the

the elegant pen of a Female Descendant, Mrs. Dorothy Richardson-and an infinite number of Letters from the principal Botanists of this Country and other distinguished Literati-were handsomely presented to me, with a Portrait of her amiable Ancestor, by the Inheritrix of his fortune and of his virtues, Miss Frances-Mary Richardson-Currer.

The Letters of Mr. (afterwards Bp.) WARBURTON to Dr. STUKELEY are now first printed from the Originals, in the possession of the Rev. J. Fleming St. John, Prebendary of Worcester; as are most of the Letters to Dr. Štukeley from many Noblemen and Scholars of high distinction.

Dr. Warburton's Letters to Mr. Des Maiseaux, Dr. Birch, and Dr. Jortin, are preserved in the British Museum.-For those addressed to the Rev. Dr. N. FORSTER and Dr. DODDRIDGE, I am particularly obliged to the Rev. Thomas Crompton, of Cranworth, Norfolk; and the Rev. THOMAS STEDMAN, the venerable Vicar of St. Chad's, Shrewsbury.

The Correspondence between THEOBALD, THIRLBY, and WARBURTON, was many years ago presented, by Mr. Theobald's only Son, to Edward Roberts, Esq. of Ealing; by whom the Letters are still possessed, and by whose indulgence a copy of them is here given.

The Memoirs of the Family of WOLLASTON, written by William Wollaston, Esq. the celebtated Author of "The Religion of Nature Delineated," with the accompanying Portrait, were given to me by the late Dr. Frederick Wollaston, through the medium of his two worthy sons, Frederick-William Wollaston, Esq.; and the Rev.John-Henry Wollaston.

The materials which have furnished the Lives of Bp. TALBOT and Mr.WILLIAM HUTCHINSON, and the many curious Letters which accompany them, I owe to the steady friendship of George Allan, Esq. M. P. for the City of Durham.

The Anecdotes of Dr. DEERING, compiled by himself, are from the Original, in the possession of James Dowland, Esq.

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