I at last deliver to the world a Work which I have long promised, and of
which, I am afraid, too high expectations have been raised[58]. The delay
of its publication must be imputed, in a considerable degree, to the
extraordinary zeal which has been shewn by distinguished persons in all
quarters to supply me with additional information concerning its
illustrious subject; resembling in this the grateful tribes of ancient
nations, of which every individual was eager to throw a stone upon the
grave of a departed Hero, and thus to share in the pious office of
erecting an honourable monument to his memory[59].

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The labour and anxious attention with which I have collected and
arranged the materials of which these volumes are composed, will hardly
be conceived by those who read them with careless facility[60]. The
stretch of mind and prompt assiduity by which so many conversations were
preserved[61], I myself, at some distance of time, contemplate with
wonder; and I must be allowed to suggest, that the nature of the work,
in other respects, as it consists of innumerable detached particulars,
all which, even the most minute, I have spared no pains to ascertain
with a scrupulous authenticity, has occasioned a degree of trouble far
beyond that of any other species of composition. Were I to detail the
books which I have consulted, and the inquiries which I have found it
necessary to make by various channels, I should probably be thought
ridiculously ostentatious. Let me only observe, as a specimen of my
trouble, that I have sometimes been obliged to run half over London, in
order to fix a date correctly; which, when I had accomplished, I well
knew would obtain me no praise, though a failure would have been to my
discredit. And after all, perhaps, hard as it may be, I shall not be
surprized if omissions or mistakes be pointed out with invidious