“If I had not enjoyed the happiness of your private
friendship, I should still have dedicated this work
| 4 | AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. |
“Many a fevered head and palsied hand will gather new vigour in the hour of sickness and distress from your excellent exertions; many a widowed mother and orphan child, who would otherwise reap nothing from the fame of departed genius but its too frequent legacy of poverty and suffering, will bear, in their altered condition, higher testimony to the value of your labours than the most lavish encomium from lip or pen could ever afford.
“Besides such tributes, any avowal of feeling from me, on the question to which you have devoted the combined advantages of your eloquence, character, and genius, would be powerless indeed. Nevertheless, in thus publicly expressing my deep and grateful sense of your efforts in behalf of English literature, and of those who devote themselves to the most precarious of all pursuits, I do but imperfect justice to my own strong feelings on the subject, if I do no service to you.
“These few sentences would have comprised all I should have had to say, if I had only known you in your public character. On the score of private feeling, let me add one word more.
“Accept the dedication of this book, my dear Sir, as a
mark of my warmest regard and esteem—as a memorial of the most gratifying
friendship I have ever contracted, and of some of the pleasantest hours I have
ever spent—as a token of my fervent admiration of every fine quality of your
| LITERARY PURSUITS. | 5 |
