that it would not be displeasing to you to hear some account of a deceased friend, has induced me to trouble you

with a lew memoirs of Taste.

Taste was the offspring of Judgment and Imagination. As he was rather a plain child, his parents endeavoured to remedy the defects of nature by art; but the methods they pursued were so different, that they were continually involved in quarrels respectarg him. The conse quence of this was, that he was scarcely attended to at all, and used to run about the streets up to his knees in mud. In this condition he was found by Homer, who scraped off some of the dirt that hung about him, and carried him with him, in the capacity of a guide. Homer introduced him to the muses, and when they went to take up their abode at Athens he accompanied them. Here, under their tuition, he improved rapidly; and at an age when other children are thumbing their horn-books, and playing at chuck-farthing, he was engraving on drinking-mugs, and making sonnets. As he grew up, from the company in which he resided, he was of course introduced to all the celebrated poets and artists of the age, who cherished and instructed him; and as he was a popular character, he was enabled to requite their services by rewarding their labors.

Besides, however, his friends, he had (like all who possess intrinsic worth) several enemics. He was nearly killed by Diogenes, for attempting to paint that cynic's tub, and carve his wooden bowl. He once attempted to settle in Sparta; but Lycurgus threw some black broth in his face, and kicked him out of the city, because he could not leap over a ditch.

lic life in the gloom of a monastery, it was scarcely known that he existed, until, in the age of chivalry, he was again called forth in the service of the fair sex. From this time he began to gain strength and respectability. The reason of this was that, although he had been forgotten, his works remained; which, on his first reappearance, were eagerly consulted; and it was aniversally agreed that the author must be worthy of the highest degree of honor and respect. He was in conse quence declared supreme judge of works of art and science, patron and protector of all artists and professors of literature, and president of all scientific establish ments. His power now became unli mited; and, still feeling an affection for Italy, the scene of his former grandeur, he made it the seat of his present greatness. After some centuries however of just and undisputed sway, certain eccen tricities were observed in his behaviour which much alarmed his friends; and at length he gave full proof of insanity, by falling in love with and marrying Folly, a being whom he had always before despised and hated. By her he had a son called Absurdity, by whom he was dethroned: after which he languished a short time and then died; leaving bus few friends to lament his loss.

It is not my intention now to enter into a history of the reign of Absurdity; but should this be deemed worthy of pub lication, you may perhaps hear some account of him, from Your's &c. NON-ES.

To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine,

SIR,

T is somewhat surprising, that your

last volume, in consulting Horace for authorities respecting flebilis, should have overlooked the followed sentence: Flebilis sponsæ juvenemve raptum Piorat.

Lib. 4. Od. 2. Lin. 21, 22.

Here febilis is evidently used in precisely the same signification as that in which Lord Hailes has employed it. More instances of a similar use of the word may probably occur in classic authors. To search for them, however, is unnecessary; as this one example is of itself quite sufficient to vindicate his lordship from the hasty charge preferred against him by your correspondent. Hanslope, Your's, &c. Dec. 8. 1809.

W. SINGLETON,

MEMOIRS

extracts from the copies of his letters are a convincing proof of his tabour and Success in it; and that he never gave up a cypher while he had the least hope of succeeding. In a letter to the Earl of Nottingham, who was at that time Secretary to William III. dated August 4th, 1689, he says: "From the time your lordship's servant brought me the letter yesterday morning, I spent the whole day upon it, (scarce, giving myself time to eat,) and most part of the night; and was at it again early this morning, that I might not make your messenger wait too long." In another: "I wrote to his lordship the next day, on account of the difficulty I at first apprehended, the papers being written in a hard cypher, and in a language of which I am not thoroughly master; but sitting close to it in good earnest, I have (notwithstanding that disadvantage) met with better success, and with more speed, than I expected. I have therefore returned to his lordship the papers which were sent me, with an intelligible account of what was there in cypher." Being hard pressed by the Earl of Nottingham, he thus writes at the conclusion of one of his letters: "But, my lord, it is hard service, and I am quite weary. If your honour were sensible how much pains and study it cost me, you would pity me; and there is a proverb of not riding a free horse too hard." The doctor, I suppose, thought it was now high time (after he had decyphered so many let ters,) that some notice were taken of his services; he therefore begins to give his Jordship the hint: he was a little more plain in his next, wherein he says, However I am neglected, I am not willing to neglect their majesties' service; and have therefore re-assumed the letters which had laid by, and which I here send decyphered: perhaps it may be thought worth little, after I have bestowed a great deal of pains upon them, and be valued accordingly; but it is not the first time that the like pains have been taken to as little purpose, by, my lord," &c.-In another appears the following postscript, dated August 15, 1691: "But, my lord, I do a little wonder to receive so many fresh letters from your lordship without taking any notice of what I wrote in my last, which I thought would have been too plain to need a decypherer; certainly your other clerks are better paid, or else they would not serve you."

In a letter to a friend, he says: "It is true, I have had all along a great many good words; that he is my humble servant-my faithful servant-my very faithful servant-that he will not fail to acquaint the king with my diligence and success in this difficult work," &c. But he met with a better master in Lord Arlington, for whom he did not do the tenth part of what he had done for the earl. And as the doctor was thus treated by our own ministers, so he was not used much better by those of the elector of Brandenburgh, for whose service he had decyphered some of the French letters, the contents of which were of great consequence; the decyphering of which quite broke the Frencir king's measures in Poland for that time, and caused his ambassadors to be thrust out with disgrace, to their king's great prejudice and disappointment. Take the doctor's own words:" Mr. Smettan, (the elector's envoy,) entertained me all the while with a great many fine words and great promises, (which, when decyphered, I found to be nulls,) telling ine what important service it was to his master, and how well accepted, and what presents I was to receive from him; and in particular, that I was to have a rich medal, with an honourable inscription, and a gold chain of great value, which (he said) he expected by the next post: but after all, he left England without making me the least requital for all my pains and trouble, save that once he invited me to dine with him, which cost me more in coach-hire thither and back than would have paid for as good a dinner at an ordinary. I believe that the elector does not know how unhandsomely I have been used; and I take it unkind of his envoy to treat me as a child or as a fool, to be wheedled on to hard services with fine words, and yet to think me so weak as to be unable to understand him; when I had decyphered for them between two and three hundred sheets of very difficult and very different cyphers, they might, I think, at least have offered me porter's pay, if not that of a scrivener. I did not contraet with them, but did it frankly; for, having a prince to deal with, I was to presume he would deal like himself." Whether it was in consequence of the doctor's letters, or that they were ashamed of their own ingratitude, or from whatever cause it proceeded, the medal so long talked of, and so long expected, was ne

last

last sent. However, though they were so unwilling to reward his services, yet they were desirous to prevent his art of decyphering from dying with him; for which purpose he was solicited by Mr. Leibnitz, by order of George I. then elector of Hanover, to instruct a young gentleman whom he would send over; and desired the doctor to make his own terms. But he excused himself by say ing," that he should always be ready to serve his electoral highness, whenever there should be occasion; but, as his art of decyphering was a curiosity that might be of further service to his own country, he could not think of sending it abroad without the consent of his sovereign." This was a great act of disinterested. ness in the doctor, and deserves the highest commendation; because it is certain he might have made a very advantageous bargain for himself, with out the least impropriety of conduct, had he not preferred the good of his country to his own private emolument; and it was, no doubt, considered as such by King William, who settled on him a pension of 100%. a year, with survivorship to his grandson, whom he had instructed in the art of decyphering at the particular desire of his majesty. We must now look back, and see the other methods in which his useful pen was employed; and we shall find it at no period idle. About the year 1653 he published his "Tractus de Loquela Grammatica-physicus;" wherein he gives a particular account of the physical or mechanical formation of Sounds used in speech, or expressed by the letters of several languages. In the year 1699, he published at Oxford three large folios upon mathematics, with this title, "Mathesis Universalis." Part of the third volume of his "Opera Mathe. matica," is employed in preserving and restoring divers ancient Greek authors, which were in danger of being lost. In the year 1642, he published a book, entitled "Truth Tried;" in answer to a treatise written by Lord Brook, entitled "The Nature of Truth." In the year 1653 was published, in Latin, his Grammar of the English Tongue, for the use of foreigners; in which he has a curious observation on words beginning with er, as if they took their meaning from the cross. In his "Praxis Grammatica," he gives us the following jeu-d'esprit, which shows him to have been so well acquainted with the English tongue, as to be able to translate extempore, from

1

corde ;

Pour sa corde corder, trois cordons il accordo: Mais, si un des cordons de la corde déscorde, Le cordon déscordant fait déscorder la corde. But, that I might show that this felicity of language was not wanting to our own, immediately, without making choice of fresh matter, I translated verbally the same four verses into the English tongue, retaining the same turn of words which he had observed in his, only substituting the word twist, purely English, for the exotic word cord, which he expected me

to use:

becasioned by a challenge given by Mr. Fermate, to the English, Dutch, and French mathematicians, to answer a numerical question: but this sort of questions were not such as the doctor was fond of; therefore, at first, he did not pay that attention to it which it seemed to require; but how he succeeded afterwards may be learnt from the following extracts. Sir Kenelm Digby thus writes to the doctor from Paris: "I beseech you to accept of the profession I here make you, with all truth and sincerity; which is, that I honour most highly your great parts and worth, and the noble productions of your large and kuowing mind, which maketh you the honour of our nation, and envy of all others; certainly you have had the satisfaction to have had the two greatest men in France, (Messrs. Fermate and Frenicle) to cope with; and I doubt not but your letter will make them, and all the world, give as large and as full a deference to you. This excellent production of your single brain hath convinced our mathe maticians here, that, like Samson, you can easily break and snap asunder all the Philistines' cords and snares, when the assault cometh warmly upon you." Mr. Frenicle writes thus to Sir Kenelm Digby: "I have read over the last letter of the great Dr. Wallis, from which it appears plain to me, how much ho excels in mathematical knowledge. I had given my opinion of him dreaming, but now I willingly give my judgment of hin waking. Before, I saw Hercules, but it was playing with children; now I behold him destroying monsters at last, going forth in gigantic strength. Now aust Holland yield to England, and Paris to Oxford." Thus ended this learned dispute; during which many other ingenious problems were started, and solved, equally to the honour of the doctor.

In 1655, Mr. Thomas Hobbes pubJished "Six Lessons to the Professors of Mathematics in Oxford." Upon this the doctor wrote an answer, entitled, "Due Correction for Mr. Hobbes, or School Discipline for not saying his Lesson right." In 1661, he was appointed one

of the divines who were empowered to review the book of Common Prayer. He wrote and published sundry tracts, and a great variety of letters, on philosophical, mathematical, and mechanical, subjects. Upon the Restoration he met with great respect; and was not only admitted one of the king's chaplains in ordinary, but likewise confirmed in his two places of Savilian professor, and keeper of the archives, at Oxford. To what has been said of the doctor, I may add, that he was well skilled in the most noble science of theology: the degree of eminence to which he attained in this particular, adds a lustre to all his other numerous, both natural and acquired, excellences. He published a few sermons in his life-time; and a volume has also been published' since his death. It does not appear that Dr. Wallis had any considerable churchpreferment, nor that he was desirous of it; for, writing to a friend upon that subject, he says, "I have not been fond of being a great mau; studying more to be serviceable, than to be great; and therefore have not sought after it." However, in the year 1692, the queen made him the proffer of the deanry of Hereford, which, being not quite agreeable to his mind, he declined; probably not thinking it worth his accepting: for, he observes to a friend upon this occasion, that: "It was a proverb, when I was a boy, Better sit still, than rise to fall. If I have de served no better, I shall doubt whether I have deserved this; it being but equi valent to what I have, and with which I am contented: I am an old man, and am not like to enjoy any place long." Thus did that great and good man give his labours to his country, without seeking those emoluments and rewards which others, without the least degree of merit, pursue with the greatest eagerness, and think themselves injured if they do not attain them.

The doctor lived to a good old age, being upwards of eighty-seven when he died, (October 28, 1703.) He was interred in the choir of St. Mary's church, in Oxford, where a handsome monument is erected to his memory, with a Latin in scription.

SCARCE