Excerpt from Memoirs of the Life and Writings of William Hayley, Esq.: The Friend and Biographer of Cowper The Author of the following Work is so well known by his various compositions, and especially by his Life of Cowper, that if an anecdote connected with the delivery of it to the public was not too remarkable to be omitted, a preface might be dispensed with, on the present occasion. The anecdote is this - In consequence of an arrangement with his publisher, a condition of which was that this Work should be delivered for the Press on the Author's decease, a very considerable annuity was secured to him during the last twelve years of his, life a fact which it would seem a sort of violence to the history of literature to withhold, especially as the forming and fulfilling of such an arrangement, with all its contingencies, must be considered as highly creditable to the parties. 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.