Memoirs, Letters, and Comic Miscellanies in Prose (Volume 1) (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1841. Excerpt: ... BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. To those anonymous writers who have formed, during a course of many years, the delight and ornament of our periodical literature, evincing the talents without achieving the renown of recognised and successful authorship, it is no more than a bare act of justice to collect, after their decease, the scattered products of their fancy, and to consolidate them, in each case, into a monument which may record the name, appropriate the writings, and prolong the memory of him to whom it is dedicated. It would be difficult to select an individual better entitled to this posthumous honour than the late James Smith, whose prolific muse cared not upon what shrine she deposited her offerings, and whose good-humour prompted him to such a ready compliance with the constant applications for occasional contributions of every description, that it has become almost impossible to recover the whole of these truly fugitive pieces, or even to ascertain the full extent of the literary paternity to which he may lay claim. His published productions are more easily to be found than those "strays and waifs" still floating about the world in manuscript; but some will doubtless have escaped research, for they spread over a series of years, were committed to various periodicals, and were not always identified by any distinguishing signature. Hastily written, and carelessly dispersed, it may be doubted whether the author him.self," singularly tenacious as his memory was, could at any time have furnished an accurate list of his own "disjecta membra." A few of his recognised papers and poems, which appeared to possess only a local or temporary interest, I have ventured to omit; as well as a portion of the published letters entitled "Endymion the Exile," and " Grimm's G...