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A

BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY

OF THE

LIVING AUTHORS

OF

GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND;

COMPRISING

Literary Memoirs and Anecdotes of their Lives ;

AND

A CHRONOLOGICAL REGISTER OF THEIR PUBLICATIONS,

WITH THE NUMBER OF EDITIONS PRINTED;

INCLUDING

NOTICES OF SOME FOREIGN WRITERS WHOSE WORKS HAVE BEEN
OCCASIONALLY PUBLISHED IN ENGLAND.

Illustrated by

A VARIETY OF COMMUNICATIONS

FROM PERSONS OF THE FIRST EMINENCE IN THE

WORLD OF LETTERS.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR HENRY COLBURN;

PUBLIC LIBRARY, CONDUIT STREET, HANOVER SQUARE.

1816.

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ΤΟ

HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS

THE

PRINCE REGENT.

SIR,

AMIDST the numerous distinctions which confer extensive and permanent glory upon a Monarch, the encouragement of Literature and the advancement of Science will always prove the most illustrious. The present Volume is indeed a very simple monument in itself, but it exhibits a record which cannot find a parallel in the annals of any other nation ancient or modern. And yet even this collection of literary memoirs is no more than a slight sketch of the exalted triumph which Human Knowledge has gained in this country during the life of your Royal Highness, and under the auspicious protection of your august Father. If in that long and eventful period, the world has been distracted by wars and convulsed by revolutions, it is satisfactory to reflect that the utmost boundaries and remotest regions of the earth have been explored by British enterprize, and derived improvement from British genius. Such is the beneficial effect of our regulated freedom and the blessing of our constitution, that where our arms have been felt, the influence of our laws has commanded respect, and our scientific superiority has excited emulation. Thus have Morals and Letters con388001

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