CHARACTERS, OF BOOKS AND MEN. COLLECTED FROM THE CONVERSATION OF MR. POPE, AND OTHER EMINENT PERSONS OF HIS TIME. BY THE REV. JOSEPH SPENCE. WITH NOTES, AND A LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. PRELIMINARY NOTICE. T may be proper to state that this re-impression of Spence's Anecdotes has been printed verbatim from my former edition, without the slightest alteration. I embrace this opportunity of supplying a deficiency in the preface, which ought to have mentioned the source from which these Anecdotes were derived. On the decease of Spence the whole of his papers passed into the hands of Dr. Lowth (afterwards Bishop of London), one of his executors, by whom, at a period long subsequent, they were given to a gentleman of the name of Forster, who held some confidential post under the Bishop. At Mr. Forster's death they became the property of his nephew, from whom Mr. William Carpenter obtained them, and placed them in my hands with a view to this publication. S. W. SINGER. May 29, 1858. |