In the course of a revised edition of my works I have come to a
biographical sketch of Goldsmith, published several years since. It was
written hastily, as introductory to a selection from his writings; and,
though the facts contained in it were collected from various sources, I was
chiefly indebted for them to the voluminous work of Mr. James Prior, who
had collected and collated the most minute particulars of the poet's
history with unwearied research and scrupulous fidelity; but had rendered
them, as I thought, in a form too cumbrous and overlaid with details and
disquisitions, and matters uninteresting to the general reader.