Produced by Adrian Mastronardi, Michael Zeug, Lisa Reigel, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)
Transcriber's Notes: Variations in spelling and hyphenation have been left as in the original. Greek words have been transliterated and placed between +plus signs+. Words in italics in the original are surrounded by _underscores_. A row of asterisks represents a thought break. Letters superscripted in the original are surrounded by { braces}. Ellipses match the original. A complete list of corrections follows the text.
The original has two different kinds of blockquotes: one uses a smaller font than the main text, and the other has wider margins. In this text, the blockquotes in a smaller font have wider margins, and the other blockquotes have two blank lines before and after the quotation. An explanation of the different kinds of quotations can be found at the end of the "ADVERTISEMENT".
The Index that was printed at the end of Volume II. of this series has been included at the end of this Volume for reference purposes.
FROM THE PAPERS BEQUEATHED BY HIS NEPHEW TO THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH; AND OTHER ORIGINAL SOURCES.
EDINBURGH: WILLIAM TAIT, 107, PRINCE'S STREET. MDCCCXLVI.
EDINBURGH: Printed by WILLIAM TAIT, 107, Prince's Street.
In this work, an attempt has been made to connect together a series of original documents, by a narrative of events in the life of him to whom they relate; an account of his literary labours; and a picture of his character, according to the representations of it preserved by his contemporaries. The scantiness of the resources at the command of previous biographers, and the extent and variety of the new materials now presented to the world, render unnecessary any other apology for the present publication. How far these materials have been rightly used, readers and critics must judge; but I may be perhaps excused for offering a brief explanation of the spirit in which I desired to undertake the task; and the responsibility I felt attached to the duty, of ushering before the public, documents of so much importance to literature.