a more powerful motive now than ambition or the love of adventure. The issue is but too well known. His son was killed, the enterprize failed, and on his return he was sacrificed to the Spaniards. Execution was granted upon the old sentence of fifteen years standing, and Ralegh was brought to the block. He observed to his friends that the world itself is but a larger prison, out of which some are daily selected for execution. The dean of Westminster took some pains to make him fear death, but that was not in Ralegh's nature. He was very cheerful,' says the dean, that morning he died, eat bis breakfast heartily, and took tobacco, and made no more of his death than if he had been to take a journey. This was the fearlessness of a brave man, the calmness of philosophy, not insensibility. He died like a man. The dean says, "this was the news a week since, but now it is blown over and he almost forgotten." But these things are not forgotten either by God or man. A fate so little deserved has been fortunate for Ralegh's reputation. We should think more of his court-intrigues, and of his conduct towards Essex, if all other feelings were not absorbed in indignation against the perfidy and meanness with which he was sacrificed to Gondomar. Ralegh, too, has a fairer claim to fame as a man of letters than as a statesman. His prose writings are full of thought, and some of his poetry exceedingly beautiful. There is some difficulty in ascertaining what is his; but the best pieces are those concerning which there is the least doubt, That which he wrote the night preceding his execution we shall copy. It is not in kis usual style, and we should almost doubt its authenticity, yet there is a troubled wildness of thought and expression which may be admitted as strong external evidences in its favour. "MY PILGRIMAGE, "Give me my scallop-shell of quiet, My staff of faith to walk upon, My scrip of joy, immortal diet, My bottle of salvation, My gown of glory, hope's true gage, 'There will I kiss The bowl of bliss, I'll take them first, To quench my thirst, And taste of nectar's suckets At those clear wells Where sweetness dwells, Drawn up by saints in crystal buckets. Then, by that happy blestful day, More peaceful pilgrims I shall see That have cast off their rags of clay, And walk apparell'd fresh like me, And when our bodies and all we Are fill'd with immortality, Then the bless'd paths we'll travel, Strew'd with rubies thick as gravel, Cielings of diamond, sapphire flowers, High walls of coral, pearly bowers. From thence to heaven's bribeless hall, Where no corrupted voices brawl, No conscience inolten into gold, No forg'd accuser bought or sold, No cause deferr'd, no vain-spent journey, For there Christ is the King's attorney; Who pleads for all without degrees, And he hath angels, but no fees. And when the twelve grand million jury Of our sins, with direful fury Against our souls black verdicts give, Christ pleads his death, and then we live. Be thou my speaker, taintless pleader! Unblotted lawyer! true proceeder! Thou wouldst salvation e'en for alms, Not with a bribed lawyer's palins. And this is mine eternal plea To him that made heav'n, earth, and sea; That, since my flesh must die so soon, And want a head to dine next noon, Just at the stroke, when my veins start and spread, Set on my soul an everlasting head! Of death and judgment, heav'n and hell, The letter to prince Henry, which Steele first printed, is palpably fictitious. Not only the thoughts but the turn of language is modern. Mr. Cayley would do well to make the whole narrative his own, and remove the originals to the appendix. He merits praise for the diligence with which he has sought out new documents, and the inpartiality with which he has adduced them. ART. V.-An Account of the Life of Dr. Samuel Johnson, from his Birth to his eleven k Year. Written by himself. To which are added original Letters to Dr. Samuel Johnson. By Miss HILL BOOTHBY. 12mo. THIS volume was among the mass of papers which Dr. Johnson ordered to be committed to the flames a few days before his death the Doctor's black servant saved them, and the editor purchased them from his widow! In this disgraceful manper are these insignificant papers brought before the public eye, and puffed in a pompous preface as relics of great curiosity and interest. We are sorry to see such flagrant impositions on the public attempted, and feel it a duty to counteract the success of them as well as we can. ART. VI.—Memoirs of Samuel Foote, Esq. with a Collection of his genuine Bon-Mats, Anecdotes, Opinions, &c. mostly original, and three of his dramatic Pieces, not published in other Works. By WILLIAM COOKE, Esq. 12mo. 3 vols. THIS is a very amusing miscellany; Mr. Cooke was in habits of intimacy with this celebrated humourist, who has now been dead thirty years, and has appreciated his character as an actor, an author, and a man, with great fairness. We could have spared some of the bon-mots, but we think that Mr. Cooke has executed his task well. Anecdotes of many contemporary characters are introduced, and one of the ill-fated Dr. Dodd, which, for its singularity, we are tempted to transcribe. "Before we relinquish this account of Dr. Dodd, it may perhaps be useful in other respects besides the mere purposes of biography, to relate the following anecdote, which has never yet been made public: "The day after the Doctor was convicted at the Old Bailey of the crime for which he afterwards suffered (a crime which, he must have known, can never afford even a hope for the royal mercy in this commercial country), he sent a note to the late Mr. William Woodfall, the original printer of the Morn ing Chronicle, requesting the favour of speaking to him on a very particular subject. This must have been a distressing summons to any one, but more particularly to a man of Woodfall's humanity: not to go would be unkind; to go would be incurring a scene of distress painful to his feelings. But Woodfall could never hesitate on a question of active and disinterested friendship; and he hastened to New gate on the very morning of receiving the invitation. "On entering the apartment where the Doctor sat, he found it impossible to avoid taking some notice of his unhappy situation; but as he was commiserating it in an embarrassed sympathizing manner, the Doctor, with great apparent composure, interrupted him, by saying, Oh! Mr. Woodfall, this is not the business I sent for you about. Sit down, and I will explain. Though I have not the unacquainted with the line of your professional pleasure of personally knowing you, I can not business, which, I under tand, engages yer much in the habits of the theatres, the mana gers, and theatrical pursuits in general. I likewise have a particular respect for your judgment in those matters; and on this account I think you can be of some service to me.' Here the other offering his civilties, then, that being in my earher days, like the Doctor proceeded. You must know, yourself, a lover of the drama, I sketched out a comedy, the hint of which I took tron the story of Sir Roger de Coverley in the spæ residence in Newgate; and if you will be so tator. This piece I have finished since my good as to revise it, and give me your interest with the manager, I shall feel myself much obliged to you.' "Mr. Woodfall, finding himself relieved by the conference taking so different and ur expected a turn, instantly acceded to this proposal, took the manuscript away with him, suggested some alterations, which the Doctor readily complied with, and afterwards corresponded with him on this subject t.li the week before his execution. "Such is the anecdote which is here given on the authority of Woodfall himself; a man of unquestionable veracity." The three dramatic pieces which are now given to the public for the first time in print, like all Foote's farces, have a deal of humour, and it would be strange indeed if they were destitute of personality. ART. VH-Memoirs of Marmontel, written by himself: containing his literary and pos tical Life, and Anecdotes of the principal Characters of the eighteenth Century.” In 4 vols. 8vo. WERE our readers to judge by the space we have allotted to the notice of these busy and various little volumes, they might conclude them to have excited in us little either of interest as an history, or of approbation as a biographical perform ance. Yet our brevity is occasioned by sensations the very reverse, which con vinced us, during the perusai, that it would be impossible so to extract and concoct he substance of this treat, as to satisfy the ppetite and please the palate of an epiure in literary anecdote. We therefore nd him to his entertainment, sharp-set ad fasting, in expectation that his pleare, like our own, will be enhanced, by t knowing of what the various courses to consist, till they are placed under ¡ eye. Though men who have lived the lives ich they undertake to write, and who y sometimes be almost suspected to e lived those lives for the purpose of iting them, labour under a certain dee of suspicion; yet we consider the init into the minuter passages of indiviA character resulting from the practice, nore than counterbalancing all probable nces against the rigid law of imparity. We may well suppose the hero his own tale to sacrifice alternately to ity and prejudice; but he generally aishes an acute reader with a touch e, by which to bring to the test of I both the errors of which he is unscious, and the deceptions he has lared to establish. There have of late rs been thrust upon the public, in suring abundance, many petty lives of inor characters, who might never have nd biographers, had they not providy secured their annalists in their own sons. This course has occasioned the lic somewhat to contract its faith in se self-accredited narratives. At the e time it must be acknowledged, that ugh the believers of the doctrine may drawn into a narrower compass, the ers at the pageant are nearly as eager as numerous as ever. f, however, the right of men in public , to call our attention to their own racter, as delineated by themselves, ends on the space they have filled in political or literary canvas, the claims Marmontel must be regarded at once b complacence and respect. The man > was acknowledged to have embeled the literary circles of the French tropolis, at a period when Paris divided literary supremacy in science with don, and gave the tone to us in taste, ners, and refinement, may be expected excite a wide and lively interest. This ectation will not be disappointed. We e trace all the characteristic features self-delineation : the nature of the inuts, and perhaps the manner of their duction, savours of a mind which had uted itself to romantic composition or moral fiction. The scene is gay, the pictures are interesting: their originals are already known through the best channels of literary and courtly anecdote. Neither has the author deviated from the character of a sentimental writer, in which he has so long been received with favour throughout Europe. Whether he introduces us to the retirement of poverty, or carries us with him into the mysterious recesses of the Bastille; whether we follow him into the cabinets of princes, through the offices of ministers, or behind the scenes, at rehearsal, and coteries; in the midst of scenes too warm for the rigid purity of the present age, as well as in the simplicity of youth and rustic life, we discover every where a delicate, refined, and moral turn of mind. The actor in scenes of dissipation and licenti ousness retains enough of his early impressions and temperament, to soften down his orgies and apologize for his aberrations. His pen, if not his heart, abjured the principles and passions, on which his imagination and memory have descanted with a degree of warmth dangerous to his own fame, and to the morals of his readers. This work, in point of composition, is not without its faults; and they are characteristic of its author. They are, however, of a kind rather meretricious and seductive, than offensive or disgusting. In short, they partake the moral tenor of the narrative, which will be loudly censured and universally read, because it will entertain more than it will instruct, because it will rather initiate the inexperienced in the slippery paths of the world, than elevate their prospects and direct their course beyond them. But though we have disclaimed attempting any thing like an abstract of these memoirs, it will be expected that we give a specimen or two from 'those insulated parts, which will not trench on the continuity and interest of the story. As the conductors of a periodical publication, we may naturally be supposed par tial to our own trade; and shall transcribe the account of the manner in which Marmontel professed to conduct the Mercure after it came under his direction. "If the Mercure kad been only a simple literary journal, I should have had, in composing it, but one endeavour to fulfil, and but one route to pursue. But, formed of differ ent elements, and calculated to embrace a vast variety of objects, it was necessary that in all its relations it should fulfil its functions; that, according to the various tastes of the subscribers, it should supply the place of newspapers to the lovers of news; that it should render an account of the theatres, to those who took pleasure in the drama; that it should give a just idea of literary productions, to those who, select in their reading, wished to be instructed, or amused; that, to the sane and prudent part of the public, who delight in the progress and discoveries of the useful and salutary arts, it should commu nicate the attempts at improvement and happy inventions of the time; that, to the lovers of the fine arts, it should announce new productions, and sometimes the writings of authors. The popular parts of science, which might present objects of curiosity to the pubJic, were also a part of its domain. But, above all, it was requisite that it should have a local and social interest, for the provincial subscribers, and that the poetic talent of this or that city of the kingdon should there find inserted, from time to time, its enigma, its madrigal, or its epistle: this part of the Mercure, in appearance the most frivolous, was the most lucrative. "It would have been difficult to imagine a periodical work more diversified, more attractive, and more abundant in resources. My work was announced: and it was well seconded. The moment was favourable. A flight of young poets began to try their wings: but while I pleaded the cause of men of letters, I did not fail to mix with temperate prabes, a tolerably severe, but innocent criticism, and in the same tone that a friend would have assumed with his friend. By conciliating the favour of young men of letters in this spirit of benevolence and equity, I had them almost all or co-operators." The following account of his triumph at the Floral Games will furnish an interesting portraiture of a youthful mind, flushed with vanity and fired by ambition, before either of those passions have assumed a destructive or degrading aspect. "The whole hall, in the form of an amphitheatre, was filled with the principal inhabitants of the town, and the most beautiful women. The brilliant youth of the university occupied the space round the academic circle: the hall, which was very spacious, was decorated with festoons of flowers and laurel, and the trumpets of the city, as each prize was given, made the capital resound with the signal of victory. . "I had that year sent five pieces to the academy: one ode, two poems, and two idyls. The ode failed: the prize was not given. The two poems were supposed to have equal merit: one of them obtained the prize for epic poetry, and the other a prose prize that hap pened to be vacant. One of the two idyls obtained the prize of pastoral poetry, and the other an inferior honour. Thus the three prizes, and the only three the academy was going to distribute, were adjudged to me: it was I who was to receive them all. I walked to the hall with such consummate vanity, that I could never recollect it since without confusion, nor without pity for my youth. It was still much worse when I was loaded with my flowers and my crowns. But where is the poet of twenty whose head would not have turned with such honours? "An attentive silence reigns in the ha, and after the eulogy of Clemence Isaure, foundress of the Flora! Games, a eulogy inex haustible, and pronounced every year with becoming devotion at the foot of her statue, comes the distribution of the prizes. The judges announce, that the prize for the ode is reserved. It was well known that I had stat an ode to the academy; it was known toe, that I was the author of an idyl that had not been crowned: I was pitied, and I smiled at their pity. The poem is then named alovd to which the is adjudged; and at these prize words, let the author advance: I rise, ap proach, and receive the prize. I am applau ed as usual, and I hear whispered aroud me: He has lost two, but he gets the third; he has more than one string to his bow, and more than one arrow to shoot.' I retire to seat myself modestly, amid the sound of t... trumpets. But soon the second poem is atnounced, to which, the academy, they sy has thonght proper to adjudge the prize of eloquence, rather than to reserve it. The author is called, and again it is I who rise. The applauses redouble, and the reading d and indulgence as that of the first. I had this pocit is listened to with the same favor again taken my place, when the idyl was pre claimed, and the author invited to come and receive the prize. I rise for the third time. Then, if I had written Cinna," Athalie, and Zaïre, I could not have been more applie ed. The interest I excited was extreme. The men bore me through the crowd on the arms; the women embraced me.” We have made these extracts from a new edition of the translation, just put into our hands, in which the translator has bestowed laudable pains in correcting the faults of the first edition. ART. VIII-The Life of Erasmus, with an Account of his Writings, reduced from the larget Work of Dr. John Jortin, by A. LAYCEY, Esq. 8vo. pp. 394. AS this publication is professedly only an abridgment of a larger work by an eminent author, which has long bea known to the literary part of the publis our concern with it extends no further mony. We saw the Lord had not conferred than to observe, that the editor appears to on you the discernment and resolution to have executed his undertaking with accu- join us and openly oppose those monsters, racy, and has extracted from the work of therefore dared not exact from you what greatly surpasseth your strength and capahis predecessor an interesting, connected, city. We have even borne with your weakand for the generality of readers, sutti-ness, and honoured that portion of the gift of God which is in you.' ciently copious narrative. The literary character of Erasmus, and the services rendered by him to the cause of learning, exceed our praise; and he certainly forms one of the most interesting objects in an age, distinguished by the number of eminent persons to whom it gave birth, and most important to posterity by its religious and political events, as well as by its influence upon literature and science. The object of the editor is explained in the following advertisement. "While Le Clerc was publishing his edition of the works of Erasinus, he drew up his life in French, collected principally from his letters, and published it in the Bibliotheque Choisie. Our late celebrated countryman, Dr. John Jortin, taking (as he has himself informed us) this for a ground-work to build upon, translated it, not superstitiously and closely, but with more attention to things than words; making continual additions, not only with relation to the history of those days, but to the life of Erasmus. "The learned doctor's taste, however, led him to distribute a large quantity of Latin among his copious notes, which, as he seems to have been aware, did not recommend his work to the generality of readers; and these notes, with his large appendix and other additions, swelled his book to two bulky quartos, which have never been reprinted since their first publication in 1758 and 1760. "The present volume, it is hoped, embraces every thing material relative to the life of Erasmus, which is to be found in the doctor's work, and is offered as a moderate substitute in size to such readers as make the foregoing objection to his plan. No authorities are subjoined, but the editor here pledges himself once for all, that not a fact is adduced which shall be found unsupported by Dr. Jortin's sanction." "Then, having bestowed on him his due praise, as the reviver of good literature, by which mean the scriptures had been read and examined in the originals, he proceeds, "I never wished that, neglecting your appropriate talents, you should enter our cap. You might indeed have favoured us not a little by your wit and eloquence; but, forasmuch as you have not the requisite cou rage, it is safer to serve the Lord in your own way. Our only fear was, that our adversaries should entice you to write against us, and necessity then constrain us to oppose you to your face. We have withheld some among us who were disposed and prepared to attack you; and I could have wished that the Complaint of Hutten, and still more your Spongia, in answer to it, had never been published. By which you may see, and feel at present if I mistake not, how easy it is to say fine things of the duties of modesty and moderation, and to accuse Luther of wanting them, and how difficult and even impossible it is to be really modest and moderate without a particular gift of the Holy Spirit. Believe me, or believe me not, Christ is my witness, I am concerned as well as you that the resentment of so many eminent persons (of the Lutheran party) hath been excited against you; this I must suppose gives you no small uneasiness, for virtue like yours, mere human virtue, cannot raise a man above being affected by such trials. To tell you freely what I think, there are persons (among us) who having this weakness also about them, cannot bear as they ought your acrimony and dissimulation, which you want to pass off for prudence and modesty; these men have cause to be offended, yet would not be so had they more greatness of spirit. Though I also am irascible, and have been often provoked to sharpness of style, I never acted thus save to hardened and incurable reprobates. I have restrained myself though you have provoked me, and promised in letters to us. One specimen of the narrative must my friends, which you have seen, to continue suffice. to do so unless you appeared openly against For though you are not in our sentiments, and many pious doctrines are condemned by you with irreligion or dissimulation, or treated in a sceptical manner, I never can nor will ascribe a stubborn perverseness to you. "About this time Luther wrote a letter to Erasmus. It was not in the most elegant style, but full of life, fire, and spirit, and vexed him not a little. He begins in the apostolical manner, Grace and peace to you from the Lord Jesus. "I shall not (he says) complain of you for having behaved as one estranged from us, to keep fair with the papists, my enemies; nor was I much offended that in your printed books, to gain their favour or soften their Lage, you censured us with too much acri What can I do now? Things are exasperated on both sides, and I could wish, if it were possible, to act the mediator, that they might cease to attack you with such animosity, and suffer your old age to rest in peace in the Lord: and thus they would act, in my opinion, if they either considered your weak |