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. ST T may be proper to state that this re-impression of Spence's Anecdotes has been printed ver batim 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. THE EDITOR'S PREFACE. HE French abound in collections of this nature, which they have distinguished with the title. of Ana. England has produced few examples of the kind, but they are eminently excellent. be sufficient to name Selden's Table Talk, Boswell's Life of Johnson, and the Walpoliana. It may Mr. Spence seems to have been doubtful what title he should give to this collection: and those of Popiana, Spenceana, Symposia, and Table Talk, appear to have been successively adopted and rejected. Whatever may have been the motive with which this compilation was begun, it was evidently continued, completed, and transcribed, with a view to the public; Mr. Spence had conditionally sold it to Dodsley, meditating its posthumous publication, but his executors were armed with a discretionary power, and prevailed upon the Bookseller to forgo his claim, probably deeming many of the Anecdotes of too recent date for publication, or possibly thinking them of too trifling a nature to add anything to the reputation of their friend; or it may have been in compliance with the wish of Lord Lincoln, (afterwards Duke of Newcastle,) who was averse to their being made public. One of the manuscript copies was, therefore, presented to his Lordship, and the other consigned to a chest with all Mr. Spence's manuscript remains. It is thus that these Anecdotes have |