POETICAL WORKS OF THOMAS CHATTERTON WITH Notices of his Life, HISTORY OF THE ROWLEY CONTROVERSY, A SELECTION OF HIS LETTERS, AND NOTES CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY. VOL. I. CAMBRIDGE: PRINTED FOR W. P. GRANT. MDCCCXLII. PREFACE. PERHAPS there was never an age in which the literary world were more devoted to studies which involve metaphysical disquisition or analytical reasoning, than the present. The character of public men is the object of the most constant and the most curious investigation: it is not simply examined, but fairly dissected. Whether this predilection for analysis may not be carried too far, is certainly problematical; but that it has been attended with results both directly and remotely beneficial, admits of no doubt. To gratify that class of readers who recognize in the study of man the proper and most ennobling |