He was educated as a doctor, but gave up this profession for journalism, and he was for some time editor of the Morning Herald. Besides editions of the works of Shakespeare, Beattie, Fielding, Johnson, Warton, Pope, Gibbon, Bolingbroke, he published A General Biographical Dictionary in 32 vols.(1812-1817); a Glossary to Shakspeare (1707); an edition of Steevens's Shakespeare (1809); and the British Essayists, beginning with the Tatler and ending with the Observer, with biographical and historical prefaces and a general index.
This entry was originally from the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.