Page:Literary Anecdotes of the 18th Century - Vol 1.djvu/10

PREFACE

TO THE SECOND EDITION, IN 1812.

DURING an interval of Thirty Years, amidst the cares and anxieties attendant on an unremitted application to a great variety of professional duties, it has been one of my amusements to revise occasionally the former Edition of these “Anecdotes;” and to avail myself of the several hints for improving it, which the kindness of my friends, or the criticism of various writers who have honoured it with their notice, have from time to time thrown out. My stock of intelligence having thus imperceptibly increased, I had an inclination, in the year 1790, to have ventured on a new Edition; but was diverted from that intention by the accumulated toil of a County History, which demanded no small portion of the time I was able to allot to the amusements of Literature.

Still, however, having persevered in filling the margins of my interleaved copy, and in reducing the chaotic form of my original volume to somewhat of a more regular consistence; in May 1802 I once more began to print; and, by slow degrees, had got through nearly half the Work, when my progress was suddenly retarded, by a calamity which had well nigh disheartened me from again resuming the task either of Editor or Printer. But, on a serious conviction that despair was equally useless and criminal, I determined to begin my labour anew; the fruits of which, such as they are,