Excerpt from A New and General Biographical Dictionary, Vol. 1: Containing an Historical and Critical Account of the Lives and Writings of the Most Eminent Persons, in Every Nations; Particularly the British and Irish; From the Earliest Accounts of Time to the Present Period; Wherein Their Remarkable Actions or Suffer As it is unnecessary to shew the usefulness of an accurate historical account of such persons and facts as have been the objects of public attention in all ages and nations, nothing more can be expected in a preface to this work, than an account of the manner in which it is executed, and the reasons why it was not thought to be precluded by any other work of the fame kind that is already extant. The principal of these works are Bayle's Historical and Critical Dictionary; the General Dictionary; the Biographia Britannica; the Athenae Oxonienses, and Mr. Collier's Historical Dictionary. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."