attention, he exclaims with a sigh, 'The last time I saw GARRICK-let me see-ay-was it or was it not in Don John? Yes, it must have been Don John, because he wore slashed breeches,-ay-in Don Johnand a very noble performance it was. I watched the eyes of the women, sir, all the time he was playing, and, egad, they followed him about as if they were jealous.' Here the old gentleman looks round to the side boxes, and shakes his head with a sort of triumphant pity: 'Hah! the boxes are very different things from what they were in those times--some pretty women, to be sure—but no wits, sir, nobody knows or reads about-now there was DOCTOR JOHNSON used to be in the boxes when GARRICK played a very great man— I recollect seeing him when GARRICK did Lear-he was fast asleep all the last act, and I couldn't keep my eyes off of him--he was a very great man to be sure—I recollect offering him a pinch of snuff once-allow me, sir, the true Macabaw, I assure you--pray, sir. isn't it your opinion that this theatre has a certain vile hugeness, as a man may say, in its appearance ;— I often tell Jack Wilkins-"Ah, Jack!" says I, "it's a long time since you and—— II I At this instant the stage bell luckily rings," &c.

But, after all, the most important part of the book is the prospectus of the Examiner, a new Sunday paper, with which it concludes.

CHAPTER IV.

HE first editor of the Examiner was a young

TH

gentleman of four-and-twenty, whose mind was made up on nearly every subject of interest to himself both here and hereafter. He was as honest as the day, and almost as careless, but that he had a lurking suspicion that he was a coward. Of a very nervous temperament, and with a horror of violence, and indeed of any physical discomfort, he was surprised and delighted whenever he found himself come creditably out of any position of danger, and already his opposition to tyranny at school, an encounter with some fishermen on the Thames, and an almost complete drowning at Oxford, had given him occasion for reassurance in this respect, not without a little patting of his own back. Although he did not share in the scare of invasion from France, he had indulged his sense of patriotism in serving as a volunteer in the St. James's Regiment, had paraded in the courtyard of Burlington House, and marched to Acton on field. days; he had been himself a "young Roscius" of poetry, and had done not a little to demolish the "young Roscius" of the stage; he had been to a public

school, and seen something of college life at both Universities; he had read widely in English literature, had a fair knowledge of Latin and Greek, and a smattering of some modern languages, especially Italian; he was fond of music, could sing and play on the harpsichord; he had made many friends besides schoolfellows. Among these were the Robertsons, three brothers, one of whom had introduced him to his future wife, and another (Henry) was treasurer of Covent Garden Theatre, and a third was in the Commissariat. He had belonged to a club which they set up, called the “Elders,” because they drank elder wine, and also to a debating society, whose members included his friend. Barron Field (who calls Leigh Hunt his "dearest friend” in a letter of 1807), Thomas Wilde, afterwards Lord Chancellor, and the future Lord Chief Baron Pollock, who was to remember his old acquaintance in his last years. He had written for the Times (probably as a temporary substitute for his friend Barnes, afterwards the editor, or for Barron Field). He had been in a lawyer's office, was now in H.M. Civil Service, and had long been engaged to be married, In short, the young editor of the Examiner was no common young man.

That he did not think himself one we have his own warrant. Indeed, no one is a severer critic of young Leigh Hunt than old Leigh Hunt. "The new office of editor," he says, "conspired with my success as a critic to turn my head. I wrote, though anonymously, in the first person, as if, in addition to my theatrical pretensions, I had suddenly become an oracle in

politics; the words philosophy, poetry, criticism, statesmanship, nay, even ethics and theology, all took a final tone in my lips ;" and in following passages he speaks of his "spirit of foppery and fine writing," and of the " nonsense and extravagance" of his assumptions, in no measured terms. But old Leigh Hunt does not fail to give young Leigh Hunt credit for his literary equipment, his honesty, and that spirit of martyrdom "which had been inculcated in him from the cradle."

But there was no more reason for the old Leigh Hunt to be ashamed of the first editor of the Examiner than of the writer of "Juvenilia." If the young Leigh Hunt was a prig he could not help it. Circumstances had conspired to make him one, and in no case was ever the child more father of the man. And besides other good qualities which the young editor had even in the time when he was most conceited and pugnacious, was his readiness to admit merit wherever he saw it, and to praise it with warmth and generosity. When an actor or a writer pleased him (and he had always an appetite and a taste for good things) he felt the pleasure keenly, and endeavoured to convey not only the amount but the exact quality of his pleasure to his readers. There is, however, more of the moral Jack the Giant Killer than of the literary Lucullus in the prospectus of the Examiner.

It announced itself as "a new Sunday paper, upon Politics, Domestic Economy, and Theatricals," printed by John Hunt, No. 15, Beaufort Buildings, Strand, nearly opposite Southampton Street. Its peculiar

merits are to consist in keeping its promises, and in its impartiality, and its bright particular star is to be a young gentleman who is not named.

"The Proprietors, who will be the Writers of the EXAMINER, cannot entirely deceive the town, for they are in some degree already known to the Public. The Gentleman, who has hitherto conducted, and is at present conducting the THEATRICAL DEPARTMENT in the NEWS, will criticise the Theatre in the EXAMINER ; and as the Public have allowed the possibility of IMPARTIALITY in that department, we do not see why the same possibility may not be obtained in POLITICS."

After citing the opinions of Swift and Voltaire on the subject of Party, against those of Solon, the prospectus declares that—

"A wise man knows no party abstracted from its utility, or existing, like a shadow, merely from the opposition of some body. Yet in the present day we are all so erroneously sociable that every man, as well as every journal, must belong to some class of politicians; he is either Pittite or Foxite, Windhamite, Wilberforceite, or Burdettite; though at the same time two-thirds of these disturbers of coffee-houses might with as much reason call themselves Hivites, or Shunamites, or perhaps Bedlamites."

The Examiner "will seat himself by the wayside and contemplate the moving multitude as they wrangle and wrestle along." As to the language and style in which his advice will be given, "it would