nics than antiquaries or historians. But here I have rather dropped hints, than given proofs, not through want of confidence in my arguments, but through fear of over-burthening the narrative. Similar, perhaps, to this sort of freedom may be considered such as I have allowed myself to exercise towards those, who have preceded me in this walk of literature. There are subjects, on which, such as wish to arrive at knowledge, must be indebted to their predecessors. But we may listen to their testimony, without a uniform imitation of their manner, or an implicit deference to their authority. Had nature designed me for a copyist, I should have been endued with less of a turn of thinking for myself, with more humility, and less industry. As it is, I held it a duty to keep other writers in view, rather than tread servilely in their steps. He who trifles with the opinions of others, or grows wanton over their mistakes, does it at his own peril: he who obeys his conscience, and follows truth, has nothing to fear. But to speak truly, I have had some regard to the public judgment, whatever that may be,of these attempts, and conceive, that whatever respect is due to antiquity, greater is due to posterity. I have been now employed in this work three years; but from the INTRODUCTION, it will appear, I have been engaged in inquiries connected with the subject more than thrice that time: and, to speak the truth, there will be found in these volumes, the result of a life, not very short, trained to certain habits of reflection. During the time, in which I have been actually engaged on them, I have secluded myself from the world, and to the great sacrifices I have made, must be added, what I think not the least, almost a total privation of the society of my friends: but I felt as one who had a duty to discharge to the public, a task to which, however unequal, I have sacrificed every feeling, and every interest. So that the reader may conclude, while following my own judgment, I have not acted as one who might trifle with the public, or had a right to presume on it; and whatever it may be, I shall submit to it, with the consciousness of one who has aimed to act right, without much either of apprehension, or expectation; with feelings towards those who have gone before me, of one who was not obliged to take every thing that came to hand; of one who has aimed to add a little to the common stock, rather than to live on the old hoard; conceiving, that those who act otherwise towards preceding writers are to be considered rather as private plunderers, than fellow-labourers. But as to freedoms that I have allowed myself towards writers of Cambridge history, they will be found, after all, intermingled with due acknowledgments and decent respect; and hence it is, I have felt a pleasure in registering their names, like a mason of the same lodge. As to those whose researches have entitled them to the name of Cambridge antiquaries, it will be found from the following pages, that I have laboured with no small assiduity over their writings, to do them justice, and have dwelt with something of gratitude on their memories; and, (though no plagiary, I am aware, is reckoned so poor as he who pillages from his own writings) yet, to demonstrate this to be no recent, extemporaneous feeling, I shall quote something written by myself many years ago, and at a moment when I was censuring a Cambridge antiquary, who had himself been censuring a man of considerable genius and learning. "It is no uncommon thing to hear pursuits of this kind made the subject of ridicule by men of fancy. What may not be so treated? But their importance and utility cannot be denied. It is not, perhaps, desirable to see men of the first genius shooting with this bow, because their sinews are formed for essays more pleasing and illustrious. But the scope of the antiquary is still wide and large. To his patient toil and plodding perseverance, the chronologist, the biographer, the historian, and the poet, stand emi nently indebted; and works the most splendid in form, and which are constructed for the admiration of posterity, rise out of ordinary documents and researches, which may appear unpromising and trifling. Who can calculate on the consequence of a single date, sometimes to an individual, sometimes to a family, and sometimes even to the public? -χαρις σμικροισιν όπηδεί. Monuments and their inscriptions considered in another point of view, as efforts of expiring mortality, which sighs for a little remembrance beyond the grave;-or as tributes of surviving relatives and friends, who labour to preserve a name, which they wish not to be quite obliterated;-do but favour a wish natural to the human heart, a desire incident to the best and purest part of our species. Under the greatest debility of his frame, and amidst even a wearisomeness of existence, man still feels the tender and endearing tie of life, and is solicitous not to be forgotten: and he who preserves a monument from mouldering into ruin, who records a name, or who rescues an inscription, that is nearly effaced, humours a useful propensity, the universal passion, and he is entitled in his turn not to be overlooked as a trifler, or as a labourer about nothing, operose nihil agendo. For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey, This pleasing, anxious being e'er resign'd, Nor cast one longing lingering look behind? On some fond breast the parting soul relies, * And with regard to our poets-I hope I shall be forgiven some old propensities. Had I not feared, that my partialities would have produced encroachments on these volumes, I should probably have been tempted to enlarge upon poesy and poets and this I could have easily done, being at the time I engaged to write this History, in the midst of a work, both critical and poetical, of some extent. As it is, I hope the occasional quotations, principally from Cambridge-poets, though such matters have not usually been introduced into Cambridge histories, will not be foreign to the nature of them, which (resembling, in this respect, poetry itself) ought to be, to please as well as instruct. It is hoped, these little artifices of poetry may sometimes relieve the reader, where the narrative begins to grow tedious: and if so, they will * Two volumes of the POETICS were printed; four were intended to be published. 5 |