THE GLEANER: A SERIES OF PERIODICAL ESSAYS; SELECTED AND ARRANGED FROM SCARCE OR NEGLECTED VOLUMES, WITH AN INTRODUCTION, AND NOTES, BY NATHAN DRAKE, M. D. AUTHOR OF “LITERARY HOurs,” and of PERIODICAL LITERATURE." ESSAYS ON London: PRINTED FOR SUTTABY, EVANCE, AND CO. STATIONERS' COURT; AND ROBERT BALDWIN, PATER-NOSTER ROW; ALSO FOR WILLIAM BLACKWOOD, 1811. LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA DAVIS INTRODUCTION. DURING the composition of the " Essays on Periodical Literature," it became my duty accurately to read through nearly every work in this department which had been published for a century: it will not appear extraordinary, therefore, that in turning over so many volumes, although now neglected or forgotten, I should occasionally meet with papers of value, equal, or approaching to, those which constitute the pages of what may, not improperly, be termed our " Classical Essayists." These, indeed, proving more numerous than I had, at first, reason to expect, it occurred to me, that, by throwing them together, under the advantages of a proper arrangement, their merits, now lost and buried in the surrounding crude mass of materials, might be rendered conspicuous, and the tribute of applause, due to their respective authors, be at length adequately apportioned. The Papers which, at present, form the "British Classical Essayists," consist of the Tatler, Spectator, and Guardian; the Rambler, Adventurer, and Idler; the World, Connoisseur, ་ |