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been placed, both proud and anxious to have it more generally known, that the kindness and friendship with which for many years your Lordship has condescended to distinguish me, has undergone no diminution.

It will be my constant solicitude, by pursuing that conduct and those studies which first introduced me to your attention, still to deserve the honour of being allowed to subscribe myself,

MY LORD,

Your Lordship's most obliged'

And most faithful Servant,

WILLIAM BELOE.

PREFACE.

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I am

IF ever there were a time when I might wish for the unclouded use of my faculties, and to be divested of all prejudice and sion, it would surely be the present. about to give an account of a work which was commenced under the most auspicious prospects, with the most favourable hopes of its successful and protracted continuation, with the best possible means to give it every aid of variety, with the opportunity of choice among almost infinite materials; and finally, with every thing I could possibly desire to cheer the present, and to animate me to future exertion.

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My situation at the conclusion of these two volumes is very different. But I hasten to give the following concise account of the

matter.

Having, as I may presume to affirm, led an irreproachable life in my profession, and having manifested my Literary diligence by my versions of Herodotus and Aulus Gellius, and by various other works, I had the good fortune to number among my friends and protectors, some of the most eminent, and some of the most estimable characters of my country. These, I am proud to say, still remain-I have not lost one.

A few years since, the venerable and learned Prelate, to whom these volumes, with his permission, are inscribed, and who has invariably demonstrated a warm and friendly zeal towards Literature and its disciples, asked me if I should wish for a situ

ation

ation in the British Museum. It was the thing of all others I most wished. It had long been the great object of my ambition. I knew and esteemed almost all its members; and from long and familiar acquaintance with books, I conceived myself to possess the necessary qualifications for the office of a Librarian.

I was at that time at the head of a respectable institution, and in the enjoyment of no contemptible emolument. However, when the vacancy of Under Librarian happened at the Museum, by the death of Mr. Harper, I applied, under the sanction of the Bishop of Durham's recommendation, and received my appointment, regularly signed by the late Archbishop of Canterbury, the late Lord Chancellor Eldon, and the Right Hon. Charles Abbott, the Speaker of the late House of Commons.

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How I conducted myself in this situation

may fairly challenge the most rigid investigation to determine. I appeal to my brother officers; I appeal to every one connected with that institution, to decide; I appeal to that part of the public who knew and observed me in the execution of my office. I conceived it my duty, and I felt it my delight, to assist and facilitate the researches of the learned, to gratify the ingenuous curiosity of strangers, and to exhibit, where the recommendation justified confidence, the sources of instruction and amusement which were committed to my But this I did not conceive to be sufficient; I thought that the public might not unreasonably expect more.

care.

As my office, therefore, confined me to the care and examination of printed books, I formed the determination of selecting such as were more extraordinary for their intrinsic

value,

7.

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