OF LITERATURE, FOR 1806; OR CHARACTERISTIC SKETCHES OF HUMAN NATURE, To which are added, A general Uiew of Literature DURING THAT PERIOD; PORTRAITS AND BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES Historical, Critical, and Explanatory. By FRANCIS WILLIAM BLAGDON, Esq. To be continued annually. "Ubi plura nitent in carmine non ego paucis, 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 |