ADVERTISEMENT. vii 



suits honorable in4hemselves and useful to the community. 

 Among other beneficial purposes which our Institution and 

 similar Institutions are calculated to answer, this is certainly 

 one ; and it will afford to the Author a pleasure of the most 

 gratifying- kind both as a citizen and a parent should 

 what he has here written be found, in any degree, to have 

 contributed to the advancement of this desirable end. If, in 

 his report of the merits of individuals still living, he may 

 be thought to have indulged too freely and indiscriminately 

 in the language of panegyric, he can assure his readers 

 that no expression of encomium has been used which he 

 does not believe to be fully authorised by the known cha- 

 racter of the parties. It is a source of just and honorable 

 gratification to himself to be on terms of intimate and 

 friendly intercourse with most of them ; and his sole endea- 

 vour has been, to let facts speak for themselves. 



He can adopt, in its fullest extent, the sentiment ex- 

 pressed by an eminent scholar and brother antiquary, on 

 a similar occasion, rejoicing in the opportunity afforded 

 him of paying, to the place of HIS NATIVITY, this "tribute 

 " of filial gratitude."* 



* See, in the Gentleman's Magazine, (vol. 97, part I, pp. 347, 544,) 

 an abstract of a very interesting paper, read before the Literary and 

 Philosophical Association of Bath, by the Rev. Joseph Hunter, F. A. S., 

 "On the connection of that City with the Literature and Science of 

 England." Mr. Hunter has been for many years a resident in Bath, but 

 not being a native, he has not, as he says, been swayed by * the partiality 

 " which is supposed to attach to those who speak of the place of their 

 "nativity." 



