PREFACE.

in so far as they related circumstances in Goldsmith's life,
and were not mere criticism, or reflection., ox anecdotes of
other persons, or illustrations of the time, were a wholesale
abstraction from the Xdfe by Mr. Prior. My answer (to
describe it as "briefly) -was, that the cliarge so brought
against me was in all its particulars unfounded and false ;
that I had mentioned Mr. Prior's name in. connection with
everything of which lie could in any sense be regarded as
the discoverer; that so far from my book being slavishly
copied from Ms, I had largely supplied his deficiencies, and
silently corrected his errors; and that, in availing myself
with scrupulous acknowledgment of the facts first put forth
by him, as well as of tlie far more important facts related
in other books without which he never could have written
his, I had contributed to them many ne-w anecdotes and
some original letters, had subjected, them to an
entirely new examination and arrangement, and had
done my best to transform an indiscriminate and dead
collection of details about a man, into a living picture oi
the man himself surrounded by the life of his time.

The reader will observe that the accnsatioii which thus
unexpectedly placed me on'my defence,, implied neithei
more nor less on the part of the person -who made it, thai
a claim to absolute property in certain, facts. It was 1101
pretended that my book contained a line of Mr. Prior's
writing. Not even the monomania wliich suggested s<
extraordinary a charge could extend it into an imputation
that a single word of original comment or criticism, literar
or personal, had been appropriated by me ; or that I ha<
adopted a thought, an expression, a view of character, a con
struction of any particular circumstances,, or a decision 01