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PRINTED FOR R. TRIPHOOK, 37, ST. JAMES'S STREET,

BY T. BENSLEY, BOLT COURT, FLEET STREET.

1814.

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PREFACE.

I KNOW not whether the readers of this work, the few who interest themselves about the literary antiquities of their country, will regret to learn that this volume closes the BRITISH BIBLIOGRAPHER. The Editors regret it, because the materials for its continuance are in more ample abundance before them than they ever were before. Increased friends, increased aid, and the rich stores of the Bodleian, unfolded to them through channels as well calculated to interest and gratify public curiosity as flattering to themselves; the treasures of Mr. Heber, Mr. Bindley, Mr. Utterson, Mr. Bolland, Mr. Phelps, and many others, always most kindly open to their researches, cause them some pain at quitting the task of communicating what is thus liberally offered to their hands. But reasons of a private nature, and a change of employment and incompatible engagements in those with whom the risk, and the profit if any, was placed, have led to this conclusion.

Minds of different talents and different pursuits will necessarily have various opinions of the utility of such publications. Perhaps the Editors are not more blind than their most witty or most bitter censurers to all the dullness and all the defects of the present work. The sole question is, whether it performs that which it undertakes; and whether that undertaking is in itself useful? He, who thinks all reading dull or repulsive but modern books, who likes no language but that of the last

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