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lively. It is very true, that in the latter part of his life, when he told a story, he was always the last to laugh at it, and seldom went beyond a particular easy smile on any occasion that I remember.

The man will never be contented! He has already twice as much as I; for I am told he has a good thousand pounds a year, and yet I am told he is as eager for more preferment as ever he was.-The same.

Let Clarke make half his life the poor's support; But let him give the other half to CourtWas a couplet in the manuscript for the fourth book of the Dunciad; but I believe I shall omit it, though, if rightly understood, it has more of commendation than of satire in it.-The same.

I had all the subscription money for the Iliad, and Tonson* was at all the expense of printing, paper, &c. for the copy. An author who is at all the expenses of publishing, ought to clear two-thirds of the

* This I believe is a mistake of Mr. Spence. It was Lintot, I think, that published the Iliad. M.

whole profit into his own pocket.—The same. [For instance, as he explained it in a piece of 1000 copies at 3s. each to the common buyer, the whole sale at that rate will bring in 150%. The expense therefore to the author for printing, paper, publishing, selling, and advertising, should be but 50%. and his clear gains should be 100%.]*

What is your opinion of placing prepositions at the end of a sentence ?-It is certainly wrong, but I have made a rule to myself about them some time ago; and I think verily it is the right one. We use them so in common conversation, and that

* This calculation is inaccurate and fallacious. Each of these books must be sold by the author's publisher to the other booksellers for 2s. 3d. and the produce will be but 1127. 10s.; consequently, supposing a volume of 22 sheets to cost but 50l, including the publisher's per centage, the author gains but 62l. 10s. But such a book at present (1794), would cost in printing and paper 677. and advertising and publishing would consume 157. more. Total 827. consequently the author would gain but 30l. 10s. To gain a hundred pounds on such a book, it ought to be sold by the booksellers for 4s. 6d. M.

use will authorise one, I think, for doing the same in slighter pieces, but not in formal ones in a familiar letter for instance, but not in a weighty one; and more particularly in dialogue writing: but then it must be when the people introduced are talking, and not where the author appears in his own person.—The same.

I finished my tragedy on the pretty story in St. Genevieve's life, when I was about thirteen. Mr. Pope.

I have formerly said, that Virgil wrote one honest line

Secretosque pios; his dantem jura Catonem.

Æn. 8. 670.

and that I now believe was not meant of Cato Uticensis.-Mr. Pope.

What terrible moments does one feel after one has engaged for a large work! In the beginning of my translating the Iliad, I wished any body would hang me a hundred times.-The same. It sat so heavily on my mind at first, that I often used to dream of it; and do so sometimes still. When I fell into the method of trans

lating 30 or 40 verses before I got up, and piddled with it the rest of the morning, it went on easily enough; and when I was thoroughly got into the way of it, I did the rest with pleasure.-The same. [He used to dream that he was engaged in a long journey, puzzled which way to take, and full of fears that he should never get to the end of it.]

The bust of Julius Cæsar in the long open gallery (at Florence) has a very weakly look, and is as like Mr. Pope as any bust that has been made on purpose for him.-Mr. T.

It was my fate to be much with the wits: my father was acquainted with them all. Addison was the best company in the world. I never knew any body that had so much wit as Congreve. Sir Richard Steele was a very good-natured man; and Dr. Garth a very worthy one.-Lady M. (at Rome). [Lady Mary Wortley Montagu.] When I was young I was a vast admirer of Ovid's Metamorphoses, and that was one

of the chief reasons that set me upon the thoughts of stealing the Latin language. Mr. Wortley was the only person to whom I communicated my design; and he encouraged me in it. I used to study five or six hours a day for two years, in my father's library, and so got that language whilst every body thought I was reading nothing but novels and romances.-The same.

I do not remember that there was any such thing as two parties, one to set up Pope, and the other Mr. Addison, as the chief poet of those times. It was a thing that could not bear any dispute.-The same.

You are very wrong in thinking that Mr. Pope could write blank verse well: he has got a knack indeed of writing the other; but was he to attempt blank verse, I dare say he would appear quite contemptible in it. The same.

I admired Mr. Pope's Essay on Criticism at first very much, because I had not then read any of the ancient critics, and Idid not know that it was all stolen.-The

same.

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