PREFACE.

footprints were in eaeh ease so carefnlly obliterated, that

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lie doubtless thought it perfectly safe to do this, and
relied on all trace being lost of his having simply been
where others had been before him. No one reading his
book would expect to tind already printed in a magazine
of the hist century not a few of its most characteristic
" original " anecdotes. To the highly curious and
valuable series of jmblwlmd recollections of Goldsmith,
written by one of Ins intimate companions, William Cooke
of the Temple, before even Percy's edition of the Misod-
ttmtaouK //'w/w, Mr, Prior never once refers. He preserves
almost UH close a silence in respect to the Percy Memoir
itsdf, which, though remaining still by far the fullest and
most authentic repository of " original " information about
(•joldsmith, he sedulously avoids to name in connection
with any of the interesting matter he, abstracts unscru-
pulously from it. Whoa, in the course of repelling his
attack, I had occasion to repeat my obligations to what
I regard as the most valuable details in his book, namely,
(Goldsmith's accounts and agreements with his publisher
Nowbory, and the bills of Ids landlady Mrs. Fleming, it
never occurred to nui to doubt that those papers were
Mr. Prior's, and remained in his possession. The truth,
however, in that they were placed at his disposal by Mr.
Murray, of Allummrle-street., whose son and successor has
most kindly placed them at mine ; and though 1 have
quoted them throughout my volumes as originally pub-
lished by him, it will be found that I have corrected
several mistakes in his transcription of them, and printed
some part of their contents for the first time. Even to
flu- entertaining tailor's bills which in Mr, Prior's book