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merit in having travelled one's eyes over so many reams of paper, than in having carried one's legs over so many acres of ground ?"-Ibid.

"My Lady Ailesbury has been much diverted, and so will you too. Gray is in their neighbourhood. My Lady Carlisle says, he is extremely like me in his manner. They went a party to dine on a cold loaf (?), and passed the day. Lady Ailesbury protests he never opened his lips but once, and then only said, 'Yes, my lady, I believe so."" -Ibid. vol. 2, p. 159.

"GRAY has translated two noble incan

"GRAY never wrote any thing easily but things of humour. Humour was his natural and original turn; and though from his childhood he was grave and reserved, his genius led him to see things ludicrously and satirically; and though his health and dissatisfaction gave him low spirits, his melancholy turn was much more affected than his pleasantry in writing."-Ibid. vol. 4, p. 14.

"It may so happen, that a writer, from a happy circumstance, may acquire a reputation as just as it is instantaneous. This was the case with the late Mr. Gray, who, by his happening to be conversant in fashionable company, gained a complete century in point of reputation. For though fashionable writers are most justly set in opposition to good, the very epithet imply

tations from the Lord knows who, a Danish
Gray, who lived the Lord knows when.
They are to be enchased in a history of
English bards, which Mason and he are
writing; but of which the former has not
written a word yet, and of which the lat-ing
ter, if he rides Pegasus at his usual foot-
pace, will finish the first page two years
hence."-Ibid. vol. 2, p. 239.

"GRAY has added to his Poems three

ancient Odes from Norway and Wales. The subjects of the two first are grand and picturesque, and there is his genuine vein in them; but they are not interesting, and do not, like his other poems, touch any passion. Our human feelings, which he masters at will in his former pieces, are here not affected. Who can care through what horrors a Runic savage arrived at all the joys and glories they could conceive, the supreme felicity of boozing ale out of the skull of an enemy in Odin's Hall? Oh, yes! just now, perhaps, these Odes would be toasted at many a contested election."Ibid. vol. 3, p. 234.

Aug. 13, 1771. "I HAVE, I own, been much shocked at reading Gray's death in the papers. In an hour that makes one forget any subject of complaint, especially towards one with whom I lived in friendship from thirteen years old."—Ibid. vol. 3, p. 381.

that their works will not last, yet fashion is now and then in the right, as well as other fools."-PINKERTON. Letters of Literature, p. 103.

"I EVEN admire Mr. Gray's plan of wearing mustachios for a considerable time, to show that he despised every possibility of ridicule."-PINKERTON, Lett. of Lit. p. 264.

Lionel and Clarissa.

"Lady Mary. I have been telling him of the poem my late brother, Lord Jessamy, made on the mouse that was drowned.

Col. Oldboy. Ay, a fine subject for a poem; a mouse that was drowned in a—.

Lady M. Hush, my dear Colonel, don't mention it! To be sure the circumstance was vastly indelicate; but for the number of lines the poem was as charming a morsel;-I heard the Earl of Punley say, who understands Latin, that it was equal to any thing in Catullus."

Young.

WHAT Mrs. Carter (to Mrs. M. vol. 1, p. 72), says of Rousseau is more applicable to

Young, "He seems to have strong principles of virtue, but in him it seems such an uncomfortable and ever dismal virtue, as strikes one in some such manner as if one was to enter into a noble apartment hung with black."

Thomson.

A BURLESQUE return from the fox chase originally in the Seasons, but omitted in later editions, and restored by Aikin in 1778, and recommended for omission again by the Monthly Review, as not in keeping with the rest of the poem.

Fielding.

HORACE WALPOLE'S Letters, vol. 1, p.

204.

Cumberland.

IN the Natural Son, Jack Hustings brings a brace of trout, the first he had taken that season, and presently he asks whether birds are plenty, and says, "I'll come and brush the stubbles for thee in a week or two's time."

Strange Conceit.

SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE (Essays, 79) has as odd a conceit as that of Quarles and Hugo. "It is strange," he says, "that the Jew should not from the triangular architecture of his own heart conclude the Trinity of the Godhead, whose temple it was appointed to be.”

Metre.

OVID wrote Getic verses in Latin measure.-Pont. iv. xiii. 19.1

And from a like feeling the monks wrote Latin rhymes.

BISHOP KEN'S Poems DEDICATION.-He seems to have regarded his successor's fate as judicial—which I am sorry to see.

"The dolorous remnant of his days."
P. 3. Philhymno he calls himself.
State earthquakes.

5. "Before the pheasant cocks began their crows."

30. The Virgin Mary

DEDICATION of the Brothers to the Duke "Swadling him by the light of his own rays!" of Grafton.

Steele.

AN admirable description of flirting and cleaning windows.- Conscious Lovers, p.

54.

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Fairies.

"A VIRTUOUS well, about whose flowery

banks

The nimble footed fairies dance their rounds
By the pale moonshine, dipping oftentimes
Their stolen children, so to make them free
From dying flesh, and dull mortality."

BEAUMONT and FLETCHER, Faithful
Shepherdess, p. 112.

32. "In her soft arms the boundless babe embraced."

All this is full of Catholic passion.

59. The innocents

"Vehicled in their own vital flame."

The Milky Way their memorial.

Lucifer and Satan are different devils in his poems.

86. The Abaddons.

112. Belzebub fermenting hell-as thunder spoils barrels of wine.

The lines here alluded to are, "Ah pudet! et Getico scripsi sermone libellum, Structaque sunt nostris barbara verba modis. Et placui, gratare mihi, cæpique Poetæ Inter inhumanos nomen habere Getas!"

Epist. ex Ponto.-J. W. W.

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69. The author's prophecy concerning himself by the name of Kennes.

76. Lines which Parnell has certainly imitated in the Hermit.

90-1. Satan disguising himself. 98. "Satan riding a snake," and

"Turning the brute's own sting to spur

flight."

Lucifer's palace.

its

God has the caput mortuum of his age."

Edmund, p. 339.

"Soon as morn rising on its wings of light Takes o'er the world its instantaneous flight."

I think he had Chamberlain's lines in his mind, "The sun on light's dilated wings had fled To wake the western villagers from bed."

Edmund, 291.

"Hilda, who kept death always in her eye, In sickness nothing had to do but die. With a sweet patience she endured her pain."

293-4. Hilda's death passionate, and at the same time most fantastic.2

Maggi's verse may be applied to Ken's devotional poems.

"Belle d'affetti più che di pensieri." Tom. 2, p. 26.

And these also,

"Più che gl'ingegni alteri Ama i cuori divoti, e nè suoi canti Val per esser Poeta essere Amanti." Ibid.

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Matthew Stevenson.

AUTHOR of Norfolk Drollery, or a Compleat Collection of the newest Songs, Jovial Poems, and Catches, &c. 1673. So says Nichols-but this title seems rather to designate a collection.

Robert Wolseley.

YOUNGER Son of Sir Charles Wolseley of Staffordshire. The father was one of Cromwell's lords, and the son took an active and

129-30. Edmund released by natural honourable part in the Revolution. He

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went as envoy to Brussels in 1693. He wrote the preface to Rochester's Valentinian,

2 The edition here referred to is that of W. Hawkins, 2 vols. 8vo. 1721. The copy before me is marked by Southey throughout. He gave it to me in 1834.-J. W. W.

Frederick Calvert, Lord Baltimore.

1731-1771.

THIS odd man, whose character may well be suffered to sleep with him in the grave, published,

1. A Tour to the East, in 1763-4, with Remarks on the City of Constantinople and the Turks. Also Select Pieces of Oriental Wit, Poetry, and Wisdom, by the Lord Baltimore. London, 1767, 8vo.

2. Gaudia Poetica, Latinâ, Anglicâ et Gallicâ Linguâ composita. Ao. 1769. Augustæ Litteris Spathianis, 1770, surmounted by a baron's coronet, with the initials F. B. | This is dedicated in Latin to Linnæus, who repaid the compliment with the grossest flattery.

her funeral, September 16, 1656. Oratione funebri, à marito ipso, more prisco laudata fuit, is part of her epitaph. The copies of this pamphlet were industriously collected and destroyed. But Mr. Granger, who had seen one, was fully persuaded by it of her innocence.

He published, besides this funeral oration, 1656, 2. A Panegyric to the King, 1660. 3. The History of Isoof Bassa, 1684, and translated The Venetian Triumph.

On his return home from one of his embassies, he took the road along the coast of France, and in his audience of the King told him that the French were hard at work in raising a naval force, and pointed out the danger to England. Instead of attending to the intelligence, Charles severely

3. Cœlestes et Inferi. Venetiis. Typis reprimanded him for talking of things which C. Palese, 1771, 4to.

Copies of these last works, which are exceedingly rare, were in the collection of Isaac Reed.

John Glanvill.-Broad Hinton, Wilts,

1664.

He published, 1. Some Odes of Horace imitated with relation to his Majesty and the Times, 1690. 2. Poems dedicated to the Memory and lamenting the Death of her late sacred Majesty of the Small Pox, 1695. 3. A Plurality of Worlds, translated| from the French, 1688.

Sir Thomas Higgons.-Shropshire,

1624-1691.

ONE of the few Cavaliers whose services were rewarded after the Restoration. Charles II. knighted him, and gave him a pension of £500 a year, and gifts to the amount of £4000. In 1669 he was sent envoy extraordinary to invest the Duke of Saxony with the Order of the Garter, and about four years afterwards went envoy to Vienna.

He married the famous widow of Robert Earl of Essex, and delivered an oration at

it was not his business to meddle with.

Bevil Higgons.-1670-1735. YOUNGER Son of Sir Thomas Higgons by Bridget his second wife; true to the Stuart family, he accompanied James into France. He published a volume of Historical and Critical Remarks on Burnet's History; and, 2. A short View of the English History, with Reflections Political, Historical, Civil, Physical, and Moral, on the Reigns of the Kings, their Characters and Manners, their Successions to the Throne, and all other remarkable Incidents to the Revolution 1688. Drawn from authentic Memoirs and MSS. 1727.

John Evelyn.-Sayes Court, near Deptford, 1654-1698.

SON of the Sylvan Evelyn. He wrote the Greek Poem which is prefixed to the second volume of his father's work, and translated Rapin's Gardens, Plutarch's Life of Alexander, and the History of the Grand Viziers Mahomet and Achmet Coprogli, and of the three last Grand Seigniors, their Sultanas and chief Favourites, with the most secret Intrigues of the Seraglio. 1677. 8vo.

Edward Howard, Eighth Earl of Suffolk. 1731.

THIS nobleman, who had, according to Horace Walpole, some derangement of intellect, published Miscellanies in Prose and Verse, by a Person of Quality, 1725, 8vo. ; the greater part of which he reprinted under the title of Musarum Deliciæ in 1728. This volume contains some Sapphick verses, which the bookseller acquaints us were so called "not because they are written in the numbers which Sappho made use of, but merely upon account of the fineness and delicacy of the subjects."

Horace Walpole has preserved a curious anecdote of this man (vol. 4, Parke's edition, p. 133, note).

An advertisement prefixed to his last publication announces that speedily will be published Alcander, or the Prince of Arcadia, by the same author.1

The Musarum Delicia is a scarce book, many of the copies having been burnt by his lordship's executors.

Park, vol. 4, p. 136, gives an extract, Upon a Beau-but it cannot be a characteristic one. From the volume of a mad man something that marks him may surely be selected.

John Lord Cutts.-1706.

Son of Richard Cutts, Esq. of Matching in Essex, and made Baron of Gowran in Ireland, one of the lords justices general, general of the forces in that kingdom, and governor of the isle of Wight.

Marlborough called him a Salamander, from his having escaped in a most tremendous action with part of the French army. A good specimen in Park's Royal and Noble Authors, vol. 5, p. 222.

Abel Evans.

ONE of the Oxford wits enumerated in the well known distich:

"Alma novem genuit celebres Rhedycina poetas,

Bubb, Stubb, Cobb, Crabb, Trap, Young,
Carey, Tickell, Evans."

He wrote a volume of Pastorals, six of which, or rather twelve, were preserved by Isaac Reed, and by him communicated to Mr. Nichols's Collection. They have more merit than is usually to be found in such poems; but are by no means equal to Gay's, who succeeded better in sport than his serious predecessors Phillips and Dr. Evans.

Gloster Ridley.-1702-1774.

THIS worthy man, who was descended from Ridley the Martyr, was born at sea on board the Gloucester East Indiaman. He published the Life of his ancestor, and a Review of Philips's Life of Cardinal Pole, one of those insidious works of the Roman

Catholics which it is necessary to watch and to confute. His eldest son was the author of the Tales of the Genii, a book which it is to be hoped will always continue to be printed.

Joseph Trapp, Cherington, Gloucestershire, 1669-17**.

DR. TRAPP was the first professor of poetry at Oxford, and like many other professors in other things, professed what he certainly did not practise. He published his

lectures under the title of Prælectiones Po

etica; four volumes of Sermons; Abramule, a tragedy; some controversial treatises against the Papists and Methodists, which are said to have much merit; and sundry miscellaneous productions both in prose and

verse. But his best or worst known works are a Latin version of the Paradise Lost, and a blank verse translation of Virgil.

See this Virgil, for surely it must have been

2 GLOUCESTER RIDLEY'S Sermons On the Divinity and Operations of the Holy Ghost, the very best on the subject.-J. W. W.

Quære? Was not this the name of Pope's preached at Lady Moyes's lecture, are some of epic?-R. S.

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