Spanish, and Italian languages, and, it is added, even of the German. When very young, he entered on board a merchant vessel at Leith, in which he served an apprenticeship. He was afterwards servant to Campbell, the author of Lexiphanes, when purser of a ship, who is stated to have taken considerable pains in improving the mind of the young seaman, and to have subsequently felt a pride in boasting of his scholar. At what time the calamitous event occurred, which furnished the subject of the SHIPWRECK, has not been ascertained: he was then, it appears, employed in the Levant trade. He continued in the merchant service till 1762. In that year, the SHIPWRECK made its first appearance, in quarto, dedicated to his Royal Highness Edward, Duke of York, who had hoisted his flag as rear-admiral of the blue, on board the Princess Amelia, of eighty guns, attached to the fleet under Sir Edward Hawke. The Poem immediately took with the public, and Falconer, having, as it is said, at the Duke's recommendation, quitted the merchant

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service for the royal navy, was soon after rated a midshipman on board the Royal George.

At the peace of 1763, the Royal George was paid off, and Falconer, in the course of the same year, was appointed purser of the Glory frigate. Soon after this, he married a young lady of the name of Hicks, who survived him. From the Glory, he was, in 1767, appointed to the Swift

sure.

In 1764, he published a new edition of his Poem, in octavo, corrected and enlarged, and, in the following year, a political satire on Lord Chatham, Wilkes, and Churchill, of which it is enough to say, that had Falconer never written any thing but satire, his name would long since have been forgotten. His Universal Dictionary of the Marine, was published in 1769, at which period he was resident in the metropolis, supporting himself chiefly by his literary exertions. Among other resources, he is said to have received a pittance

from writing in the Critical Review, under his countryman Mallet. He had received, the preceding year, proposals from his friend Mr. Murray, to enter into company with him as a bookseller, on his taking Mr. Sandby's business in Fleetstreet; it does not appear from what cause he was led to decline the offer. While he was preparing to publish a third edition of the SHIPWRECK, he obtained the highly advantageous appointment of purser to the Aurora frigate, Captain Lee, which was ordered to carry out Mr. Vansittart and the other Commissioners to India, with the promise of being made their private secretary. The catastrophe is well known. The Aurora frigate sailed on the 30th of September, 1769, left the Cape on the 27th of December, and was heard of no more. It is the most probable opinion, that she foundered in the Mozambique channel, the dangers of which, the captain, in spite, as it is said, of remonstrances, was rash enough, although a stranger to its navigation, to

encounter.

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In 1773, a black was examined before the East India Directors, who affirmed that he was one of five persons who had been saved from the wreck of the Aurora, and that she had been cast away on a reef of rocks off Mocoa.

To these particulars, for which the public are chiefly indebted to the assiduous researches of the Rev. James Stanier Clarke, it may be added, on the same authority, that Falconer was, in his person, about five feet seven inches in height, of a thin light make, hard featured, and weatherbeaten, of blunt and aukward manners, but cheerful, kind, and generous. He was, however, inclined to be satirical, and delighted in controversy strange characteristics of a man who was a thorough seaman and a poet!