intelligence, but by remarking that nation after nation, and century after century, has been able to do little more than transpose his incidents, new name his characters, and paraphrase his sentiments.

The reverence due to writings that have long subsisted arises therefore not from any credulous confidence in the superior wisdom of past ages, or gloomy persuasion of the degeneracy of mankind, but is the consequence of acknowledged and indubitable positions, that what has been longest known has been most considered, and what is most considered is best understood.-(Preface to Shakspeare.)

JUNIUS.

Relinquishing, therefore, all idle views of amendment to your grace, or of benefit to the public, let me be permitted to consider your character and conduct merely as a subject of curious speculation. There is something in both which distinguishes you not only from all other ministers, but all other men. It is not that you do wrong by design, but that you should never do right by mistake. It is not that your indolence and your activity have been equally misapplied, but that the first uniform principle, or if I may call it the genius of your life, should have carried you through every possible change and contradiction of conduct, without the momentary imputation or colour of a virtue; and that the wildest spirit of inconsistency should never once have betrayed you into a wise or honourable action. This, I own, gives an air of singularity to your fortune, as well as to your disposition. Let us look back together to a scene in which a mind like yours will find nothing to repent of. Let us try, my lord, how well you have supported the various relations in which you stood, to your sovereign, your country, your friends, and yourself. Give us, if it be possible, some excuse to posterity, and to ourselves, for submitting to your administration. If not the abilities of a great minister, if not the integrity of a patriot, or the fidelity of a friend, show us at least the firmness of a man. For the sake of your mistress, the lover shall be spared. I will not lead her into public, as you have done, nor will I insult the memory of departed beauty. Her sex, which alone made her amiable in your eyes, makes her respectable in mine.

The character of the reputed ancestors of some men, has made it possible for their descendants to be vicious in the extreme, without being degenerate. Those of your grace, for instance, left no distressing examples of virtue, even to their legitimate posterity; and you may look back with pleasure to an illustrious pedigree, in which heraldry has not left a single good quality upon record to insult or upbraid you. You have better proofs of your descent, my lord, than the register of a marriage, or any troublesome inheritance

The Duke of Grafton,

of reputation. There are some hereditary strokes of character, by which a family may be as clearly distinguished as by the blackest features of the human face. Charles the First lived and died a hypocrite. Charles the Second was a hypocrite of another sort, and should have died upon the same scaffold. At the distance of a century we see their different characters happily revived and blended in your grace. Sullen and severe without religion, profligate without gaiety, you live like Charles the Second, without being an amiable companion; and, for aught I know, may die as his father did, without the reputation of a martyr.-(Letters.)

DAVID HUME,

b. 1711, d. 1776.

The street before Whitehall was the place destined for the execution for it was intended, by choosing that very place, in sight of his own palace, to display more evidently the triumph of popular justice over royal majesty. When the king came upon the scaffold, he found it so surrounded with soldiers, that he could not expect to be heard by any of the people: he addressed, therefore, his discourse to the few persons who were about him, particularly Colonel Tomlinson, to whose care he had lately been committed, and upon whom, as upon many others, his amiable deportment had wrought an intire conversion. He justified his own innocence in the late fatal wars, and observed that he had not taken arms till after the parliament had inlisted forces; nor had he any other object in his warlike operations, than to preserve that authority entire, which his ancestors had transmitted to him. He threw not, however, the blame upon the parliament; but was more inclined to think that ill instruments had interposed, and excited in them fears and jealousies with regard to his intentions. Tho' innocent towards his people, he acknowledged the equity of his execution in the eyes of his Maker; and observed, that an unjust sentence, which he had suffered to take effect, was now punished by an unjust sentence upon himself. He forgave all his enemies, even the chief instruments of his death; but exhorted them and the whole nation to return to the ways of peace, by paying obedience to their lawful sovereign, his son and successor. At one blow was his head severed from his body. A man in a vizor performed the office of executioner: another, in a like disguise, held up to the spectators the head streaming with blood, and cried aloud, This is the head of a traitor.

It is impossible to describe the grief, indignation, and astonishment, which took place not only among the spectators, who were overwhelmed with a flood of sorrow, but throughout the whole nation, so soon as the report of this fatal execution was conveyed to them. Never monarch, in the full triumph of success and victory, was more dear to his people, than his misfortunes and magnanimity, his patience and piety, had rendered this unhappy prince. In pro

portion to their former delusions, which had animated them against him, was the violence of their return to duty and affection; while each reproached himself, either with active disloyalty towards him, or with too indolent defence of his oppressed cause. On weaker minds, the effect of these complicated passions was prodigious. Women are said to have cast forth the untimely fruit of their womb: others fell into convulsions, or sunk into such a melancholy as attended them to their grave: nay, some, unmindful of themselves, as tho' they could not, or would not, survive their beloved prince, it is reported, suddenly fell down dead. The very pulpits were bedewed with unsuborned tears; those pulpits which had formerly thundered out the most violent imprecations and anathemas against him. And all men united in their detestation of those hypocritical parricides, who, by sanctified pretences, had so long disguised their treasons, and in this last act of iniquity, had thrown an indelible stain upon the nation.-(The History of England.)

LAURENCE STERNE,

b. 1713, d. 1768.

My uncle Toby went to his bureau, put his purse into his breeches pocket; and, having ordered the Corporal to go early in the morning for a physician, he went to bed and fell asleep.

The sun looked bright, the morning after, to every eye in the village but Le Fevre's and his afflicted son's. The hand of death pressed heavy upon his eyelids; and hardly could the wheel at the cistern turn round its circle, when my uncle Toby, who had risen up an hour before his wonted time, entered the Lieutenant's room, and without preface or apology, sat himself down on the chair by the bedside, and, independently of all modes and customs, opened the curtain in the manner an old friend and brother officer would have done it; and asked him how he did-how he had rested in the night-what was his complaint-where was his pain-and what he could do to help him;-and, without giving him time to answer any one of these inquiries, went on and told him of the little plan which he had been concerting with the Corporal the night before for him.

"You shall go home directly, Le Fevre," said my uncle Toby,. "to my house; and we'll send for a doctor to see what's the matter; and we'll have an apothecary; and the Corporal shall be your nurse; and I'll be your servant, Le Fevre."

There was a frankness in my uncle Toby-not the effect of familiarity, but the cause of it-which let you at once into his soul, and showed you the goodness of his nature; to this there was something in his looks, and voice, and manner superadded, which eternally beckoned to the unfortunate to come and take shelter under him; so that before my uncle Toby had half finished the kind offers he was making to the father, had the son insensibly pressed up close to his knees, and had taken hold of the breast of

his coat, and was pulling it towards him. The blood and spirits of Le Fevre, which were waxing cold and slow within him, and were retreating to their last citadel, the heart, rallied back; the film forsook his eyes for moment; he looked up wishfully in my uncle Toby's face, then cast a look upon his boy; and that ligament, fine as it was, was never broken!

Nature instantly ebbed again; the film returned to its place; the pulse fluttered-stopped-went on-throbbed-stopped againmoved-stopped. Shall I go on? No.-(Death of Le Fevre.)

TOBIAS SMOLLETT,

b. 1721, d. 1771.

Genius in writing spontaneously arose, and, though neglected by the great, flourished under the culture of a public which had pretensions to taste, and piqued itself on encouraging literary merit. Swift and Pope we have mentioned on another occasion. Young still survived, a venerable monument of poetical talent. Thomson, the poet of the Seasons, displayed a luxuriancy of genius in describing the beauties of nature. Akenside and Armstrong excelled in didactic poetry. Even the epopea did not disdain an English dress, but appeared to advantage in the Leonidas of Glover, and the Epigoniad of Wilkie. The public acknowledged a considerable share of dramatic merit in the tragedies of Young, Mallet, Home, and some other less distinguished authors. Very few regular comedies, during this period, were exhibited on the English theatre; which, however, produced many less laboured pieces, abounding with satire, wit and humour. The Careless Husband of Cibber, and Suspicious Husband of Hoadley, are the only comedies of this age that bid fair for reaching posterity. The exhibitions of the stage were improved to the most exquisite entertainment by the talents and management of Garrick, who greatly surpassed all his predecessors of this, and perhaps every other nation, in his genius for acting; in the sweetness and variety of his tones, the irresistible magic of his eye, the fire and vivacity of his action, the elegance of attitude, and the whole pathos of expression. Quin excelled in dignity and declamation, as well as in exhibiting some characters of humour, equally exquisite and peculiar. Mrs. Cibber breathed the whole soul of female tenderness and passion; and Mrs. Pritchard displayed all the dignity of distress. That Great Britain was not barren of poets at this period, appears from the detached performances of Johnson, Mason, Gray, the two Whiteheads, and the two Wartons, besides a great number of other bards, who have sported in lyric poetry, and acquired the applause of their fellow citizens. Candidates for literary fame appeared even in the higher sphere of life, embellished by the nervous style, superior sense, and extensive erudition of a Corke; by the delicate taste, the polished muse, and tender feelings of a Lyttelton. King shone unrivalled in Roman eloquence. Even the female sex distinguished themselves

by their taste and ingenuity. Miss Carter rivalled the celebrated Dacier in learning and critical knowledge; Mrs. Lennox signa'ized herself by many successful efforts of genius, both in poetry and prose; and Miss Reid excelled the celebrated Rosalba in portrait painting, both in miniature and at large, in oil as well as in crayons. The genius of Cervantes was transfused into the novels of Fielding, who painted the characters, and ridiculed the follies of life, with equal strength, humour, and propriety. The field of history and biography was cultivated by many writers of ability; among whom we distinguish the copious Guthrie, the circumstantial Ralph, the laborious Carte, the learned and elegant Robertson, and above all, the ingenious, penetrating and comprehensive Hume, whom we rank among the first writers of the age, both as an historian and philosopher. Nor let us forget the merit conspicuous in the works of Campbell, remarkable for candour, intelligence, and precision. Johnson, inferior to none in philosophy, philology, poetry, and classical learning, stands foremost as an essayist, justly admired for the dignity, strength, and variety of his stile, as well as for the agreeable manner in which he investigates the human heart, tracing every interesting emotion, and opening all the sources of morality. The laudable aim of inlisting the passions on the side of virtue, was successfully pursued by Richardson, in his Pamela, Clarissa, and Grandison; a species of writing equally new and extraordinary, where, mingled with much superfluity, we find a sublime system of ethics, an amazing knowledge and command of human nature. Many of the Greek and Roman classics made their appearance in English translations, which were favourably received as works of merit among these we place, after Pope's Homer, Virgil by Pitt and Warton, Horace by Francis, Polybius by Hampton, and Sophocles by Francklin. The war introduced a variety of military treatises, chiefly translated from the French language; and a free country, like Great Britain, will always abound with political tracts and lucubrations. Every literary production of merit, calculated for amusement or instruction, that appeared in any country or language of Christendom, was immediately imported, and naturalized among the English people.-Never was the pursuit after knowledge so universal, or literary merit more regarded, than at this juncture by the body of the British nation; but it was honoured by no attention from the throne, and little indulgence did it reap from the liberality of particular patrons.-(Continuation of the Com flete History of England.)

WILLIAM ROBERTSON,

b. 1721, d. 1793.

Zeal for what he regarded as truth, undaunted intrepidity to maintain it, abilities both natural and acquired to defend it, and unwearied industry to propagate it, are virtues which shine so conspicuously in every part of his behaviour, that even his enemies