should ever be qualified to write a frank is a strange thing; and that another should be solicited to assist in investigating the records of the country, and have access to the most sacred repositories of the state, is not less so.

Do you still continue to preach JESUS and the Resurrection? May God be with you! My love to all my old friends in St. Austell.

"I am, my dear sir,

"Your's affectionately,

"A. CLARKE."

"To Mr. Samuel Drew, St. Austell, Cornwall.

"Free, THо. THOMPSON."

The MS being at length returned to the author, he made known his intention of publishing by subscription, and, in revising it for the press, availed himself of the various criticisms it had undergone. Such was the credit given to Mr. Drew's talents for abstruse inquiry, that his application to the public was soon answered by orders for more than eight hundred copies. Through the kind intervention of Dr. Clarke, overtures for the purchase of the copyright were also speedily made to him by the proprietor of his treatise on the Soul. Conceiving that it would be more advantageous to retain the copyright until he had disposed of the first impression, he at first declined the offer to purchase. Ultimately, for five hundred copies complete in boards, he resigned his property in the treatise to Mr. Edwards, who placed so much reliance on the merits of the book, and its author's celebrity, as to hazard an edition of 1500.

The work was published in April, 1809. Writing

to a friend, on the 10th of May, the author says, "I have not seen it since it was in MS; but all the proof sheets have been examined by Adam, the first of men. Whatever usage it may receive from the critics, I shall feel a solace arising from the rectitude of my intentions." In the following August, Mr. Edwards, in a letter to Mr. Drew, remarks, “Your new Essay has not, I believe, been reviewed yet by any one." Before the close of the year he writes thus: "I have now left, of the last work, about 200 copies unsold; but of the Essay on the Soul, I have only four copies remaining. I think of venturing another edition of this, as soon as I get your corrected copy. I did not know, till last week, that the AntiJacobin had reviewed your last work; and it appears, by your letter, that you are unacquainted with it; however, they have said but little about it, and I suppose for this reason, that they did not know well how to treat it; it is in the number for September I believe this is the only one that has yet noticed it. I saw Mr. Parken last week, and asked him if any person was reviewing it for the Eclectic. He

to understand that it was difficult to get a proper person to do it justice. I would have you to expedite your corrections for another edition of the Essay on the Body, at all events; as I hope it will not be long before I shall want to put it to press again."

In a letter from a London bookseller, of the same year, appears this request: "I wish you could contrive to send me a review of your new Essay for the They have wished me to get

E

M

a review of it by some friend of mine, and I know no one who is able and willing to do it in the manner that it deserves. If you could do something in that way, it might remain a secret between you and myself."

The hint thus given, for Mr. Drew to criticise his own performance, and some proposals which he received from other quarters, of a similar purport, raised his indignation. "Such things," he observed, "may be among the tricks of trade; but never will I soil my fingers by meddling with them. My work shall honestly meet its fate. If it be praised, I shall doubtless be gratified — if censured, instructed — if it drop still-born from the press, I will endeavour to be contented." Absolutely still-born it was not:besides the Anti-Jacobin, it was reviewed in the British Critic. But, for the reason assigned by Mr. Edwards the difficulty of procuring competent reviewers the book obtained less notice in the journals of the day than was due to its merit, the reputation of its author, and the importance of its subject; and possibly from this cause, the second edition of the treatise, so quickly anticipated, did not appear until 1822.

-

SECTION XVIII.

--

Death and Memoir of Mr. Whitaker Mr. Drew's illness· His acquaintance with Colonel Sandys and Professor Kidd - He is advised to write for the Burnet prize.

We must now return to the year 1808, in which Mr. Drew had to lament the decease of his early patron and constant friend, the Rev. John Whitaker. To departed excellence a tribute is always due. In this place especially, it should be paid to one whose kind and fostering care cherished Mr. Drew's first literary undertakings, and decidedly influenced his future destiny. Nothing has been said in these pages, of the character and talents of that amiable and learned man; for the writer one of another generation feels his incompetence to the task. He will, therefore, hold himself and his readers indebted to the pen of Mr. Polwhele for a brief notice of this venerable scholar and antiquarian.

"JOHN WHITAKER was born at Manchester in 1735. In the register of baptisms at the Collegiate parish church of Christ, in that place, we find he was baptised on the 11th of May in that year. Before he was ten years of age, he was entered a scholar of the Free Grammar School at Manchester. In 1752, he

was made Exhibitioner to Oxford, at ten pounds per annum.' He was elected Scholar of C.C.C. 3rd of March, 1753; and Fellow 21st of January, 1763. In 1759, February 27, he was admitted M.A.; and in 1767, July 1st, he proceeded B.D.

"It appears that he was a young man of 'great peculiarities.' At college he associated with very few; yet not from fastidiousness. His early religiousness was apparent in his regularly keeping the fast of Lent, and that of every Friday throughout the year, until supper time. In this observance there was no affectation; if the uniform simplicity of a long life will authorise such an assurance.

"In 1773 we find Mr. W. in London, the Morning Preacher of Berkeley-chapel. To this office he had been appointed in November, by a Mr. Hughes, but in less than two months was removed from his situation. During his residence in London, Whitaker had an opportunity of conversing with several of our most celebrated writers; among whom were the author of the Rambler, and the historian of the Roman Empire. With Gibbon, Mr. W. was intimately acquainted: and the MS of the first volume. of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,' was submitted to his inspection. But, what was his surprise, when, as he read the same volume in print, that chapter which has been so justly obnoxious to the Christian world, was then, for the first time, introduced to his notice! That chapter Gibbon had suppressed in the MS, overawed by Whitaker's high character, and afraid of his censure. And, in fact, that the Deist should have shrunk from his