Such are, for instance, the valuable discoveries which that excellent philosopher and novelist Mr. Godwin hath made and edited, of and concerning the great poet Chaucer; and, inasmuch as the nice and small works of clock-makers, which we have mentioned, are carefully placed in huge towers and steeples, beyond malicious or impertinent curiosity, so this prudent philosopher hath disposed his small facts in two tall volumes, equally out of the reach of the vulgar. Such also are those valuable illustrations of the private lives of public men which have issued from the Press under the titles of "Ana," "Remains," and "Memoirs," and which have so admirably answered the purposes for which they were put forth--namely, that of being sold--while they at the same time maintain a discreet silence on all matters which the ingenious subject of the biography might wish to conceal, agreeably to that excellent maxim, _de mortuis nil nisi bonum_: by these means, such treatises become a delectable kind of reading, wherein nothing is admitted which can hurt the feelings of any of the worthy persons mentioned in the course of the work, particularly if they be deceased. This mode of writing conduces to good humour and charity amongst men, and manifestly tends, as Dr. Johnson observes on another occasion, to raise the general estimate of human nature. On these principles and considerations have I been induced, at no small cost of time and labour, to endeavour to throw a new light upon the life of Matthew Whittington, some time Mayor (or Lord Mayor, as the courtesy goeth) of this worthy City of London,--a man, whose fame needs no addition, but only to be placed in a proper point of view, to challenge the admiration of a grateful posterity of Mayors and Aldermen.