INTRODUCTION. The first and second Chapters of these Reminiscences have their main support in EPISTOLARY CORRESPONDENCE. For the NOTES and ILLUSTRATIONS the Memorialist solicits indulgence. We have heard from high authority, that 66 any man of observation might make a book of self-history both entertaining and edifying :" yet they who are amused by "Records of his Life," are often too prompt in accusing the autobiographer of egotism. In retracing the old ground, Reminiscences, long dormant, have sprung up and fluttered in busy swarms around me. Yet I have endeavoured to brush them by thousands away; lest I should incur a charge—which might, perhaps, find an apology in the infirmities of seventysix. Thus much for myself. In regard to the Correspondence in general, I conceive that from the variety of the style and language, it may not be uninteresting: nor can it be deemed deficient in instruction or information, when the characters of many of the writers, eminent in the republic of letters, are duly appreciated. Of the third Chapter, I have little more to observe, than that Extracts from the principal POEMS have been several years before the public; and that those specimens have excited a wish in the best judges to be gratified with the whole. The chain of connexion between the POETRY and the LETTERS, will shew, that I cannot have greatly erred in bringing all (whether Prose or Verse) under the denomination of "REMINISCENCES." Polwhele, near Truro, 1836. R. P. CONTENTS OF VOLUME I. Mrs. N-1, Lord Loughborough, Mr. Prebendary Swete, Sir George Yonge, Rev. Samuel Badcock, Professor White, Sir James Harris, (afterwards SECTION V. 1806-1820. Correspondence with Rev. J. Trist, Rev. Malachi Hitchins, Lord de Dunstanville, Canon Howell, Mr. T. Flindell, Rev. Archdeacon Nares, Canon Bailye, Rev. F. SECTION VI. 1821-1825. Correspondence with Archdeacon Short, Archdeacon Nares, Rev. J. Trist, Rev. James Plumptre, Lord Exmouth, THIS chapter runs nearly parallel in point of time with the Author's "Traditions and Recollections." In its leading features, it has less of classic literature and miscellaneous prolusion, than of historical and antiquarian notices, and less of domestic incident and trivial anecdote, than of political discussion. The Correspondence is supported by high literary characters: and the Memorialist seems to shrink into nothing amidst a group of worthies ;the most distinguished of whom are HANNAH MORE, LOUGHBOROUGH, YONGE, BADCOCK, WHITE, WHITAKER, and GRENVILLE. SECTION THE FIRST. 1775-1797. POLWHELE: TRURO. CORRESPONDENCE WITH T. POLWHELE, ESQ. AND JOHN THOMAS, ESQ. B |