DEDICATION. To THE REV. WILLIAM LAYTON, M. A. A GENTLEMAN TO WHOM THE LATE MR. NICHOLS WAS INDEBTED, DURING A FRIENDSHIP OF MORE THAN FORTY YEARS, FOR MUCH VALUABLE LITERARY ASSISTANCE, THIS VOLUME IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED, BY HIS FAITHFUL HUMBLE SERVANTS, J. B. NICHOLS AND SON. PREFACE. THE Contents of the present volume consist principally of selections from the yet far from exhausted stores of literary correspondence possessed by the late Mr. Nichols. Three series of letters are included, which would probably have been published before, had they not in the original appeared too extensive to become only portions of a volume. These are the correspondence with Mr. Gough of three eminent antiquaries: Mr. Essex, the Cambridge architect; Mr. Brooke, Somerset Herald; and the Rev. Samuel Denne. In a careful revision of the originals, for the purpose of abridgement and condensation, it has been endeavoured to omit matter already published; and indeed to retain only such portions as might be conducive to some useful purpose, if not (as in most cases) from their biographical or literary information, at least from containing intelligent and sensible remarks. The letters of Lord Camelford are from the papers consigned to Mr. Nichols by the family of his kind friend, and assistant in this Work, Mr. Justice Hardinge. They are the composition of a highly cultivated mind, of a literary turn, and polished by an intercourse with the best society of Europe; and, although their theme is in a great degree politics, they will not be perused with less interest on that account, when it is recollected that the writer was a cousin of the Prime Minister of the period, and an eye-witness of those first stages of the French Revolution which furnish a principal topic for his remarks. The biographical memoirs have in many cases been compiled from a variety of sources, and are therefore generally entitled to the term "original;' when not original, additional facts have in almost every case been introduced. The autobiography of Mr. Chafin, a clerical country squire, who in his old age turned author, after a life spent in pursuits of a very opposite character, will be found to possess many of the charms usually characteristic of that description of writing. The following distinct articles, (most of them embracing auxiliary notices of other literary characters,) have been contributed by the Rev. James Ford, late of Ipswich, and now Vicar of Navestock in Essex. George Richard Savage Nassau, Esq. The Rev. William Clubbe, LL. B. and John Clubbe, M. D. The Rev. John Price, Keeper of the Bodleian. Richard Beatniffe, author of the Norfolk Tour. The Rev. John Brand, the Mathematician. The Rev. Richard Canning, A. M. editor of the second edition of the Suffolk Traveller. Edmund Gillingwater, historian of Lowestoft and Bury. The Rev. Thomas Bishop, D.D. Biographical notices of the Dawson family. The Rev. George Burton, A. M. Mr. John Mole. In the article which commences this volume, that of the great critical autocrat Mr. Gifford, the Editors were indebted to the late William Bulmer, Esq. both for the communication of additional information on Mr. Gifford's dramatic labours, and for the poetical trifles which at once show the goodnature of the writer's disposition, and his talents in extempore versification. John Turner, Esq. a Commissioner of Bankrupts, has kindly contributed a portrait of his late father the Rev. Baptist Noel Turner, as well as the use of the MSS. left by that gentleman. The Rev. Charles Turnor, F. S. A. obligingly revised the memoir of his late brother, Edmund Turnor, Esq. F.R.S. & S.A.; as did Richard Edward Kerrich, Esq. that of his late father, the Principal Librarian of Cambridge University. The Rev. Thomas Harwood, B. D. F.S. A. of Lichfield, considerably amended the articles on the Rev. Theophilus Buckeridge, the topographer, and on Mr. Greene, the virtuoso, of that city. The memoir of the Rev. Thomas Leman, F.S. A. was compiled with some difficulty; but at length greatly enriched by the assistance and inquiries of the Rev. Joseph Hunter, F.S. A. of Bath, and by the contribution of some letters and anecdotes by James Norris Brewer, Esq. F. S. A. The interesting letters of Mr. Murphy, the architect and traveller, have been supplied by Thomas Crofton Croker, Esq. F.S. A.; and for a copy of |