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OF

LITERATURE,

FOR 1806;

OR

CHARACTERISTIC SKETCHES OF HUMAN NATURE,
AND MODERN MANNERS.

To which are added,

A general Uiew of Literature

DURING THAT PERIOD;

PORTRAITS AND BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES
Of eminent Literary, and Political Characters;
WITH NOTES,

Historical, Critical, and Explanatory.

By FRANCIS WILLIAM BLAGDON, Esq.
Author of the imperial folio History of India, (published under the
Patronage of his Majesty,) of the quarto Life of Lord
Viscount Nelson, &c. &c.

To be continued annually.

"Ubi plura nitent in carmine non ego paucis,
Offeudar maculis, quas aut incuria fudit,
Aut humana parum cavit natura."

HORACE

LONDON:

Printed by J. G. Barnard, 57, Snow-Hill,

FOR B. CROSBY AND CO. STATIONERS' COURT,

PATERNOSTER ROW.

PREFACE.

BACON in his "Historia Vita et mortis," recommends light and cheerful writings to be read for life and death; and Sterne used to say that such as divert or exhilarate the mind ought not to be reprehended with too methodistical a severity.

It is, perhaps, by an unpremeditated adoption of these two maxims that we are indebted for the success which has attended the preceding volumes of this composition; but in conformity to the advice of Pliny, who observes, that there is nothing so trifling as to attempt to excuse or defend trifles by a long preface, we shall make no

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